By Gina Gomez
Los Angeles, Nov.21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Los Angeles Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler is in news lately as the broadcaster was suspended by the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network for his comments about Grizzlies center, Hamed Haddadi during Wednesday’s match. This was the first time that the veteran Clippers television and radio voice had missed a Clippers broadcast in the last 25 years of his career.

Along with Lawler, analyst Michael Smith has also received the suspension order from the Fox network for their conversation regarding the Grizzlies player, who is the first Iranian to play in the National Basketball Association. According to reports, in the conversation both the commentators discussed about the player in a ‘derogatory’ fashion referring to him as an “Eye-ran”. At the same time, Haddadi was compared to the sexist and racist fictional character of Borat. Moreover, Borat is a character created by comic Sacha Baron Cohen which actually belongs to Kazakhstan and not Iran as both of them had thought.

The comments were brought to the notice of the Fox network following a complain that was filed by one of the viewers who got offended by the comments. This resulted in both Lawler and Smith receiving a one match ban due to which they missed Friday’s match where the Clippers clashed with the Denver Nuggets.

However, later Lawler expressed his regret for the careless comments and at the same time added that he was extremely sorry if he had offended anybody in the process. While reacting to the suspension, Clippers officials added that the incident was unfortunate but surely the announcers did not say anything on purpose.