CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.
Last week, Jalen Rose made headlines when he said on his podcast and TV show, "Jalen & Jacoby," that Kevin Love was only selected to play in the 2020 Summer Olympics because Team USA didn't want to send an all-Black team to Tokyo.
Appearing on Instagram live on Monday, the former NBA guard-turned-ESPN analyst issued an apology and explanation for his comments.
"I feel like I disrespected the game this week. Because what I said about Kevin Love making the Olympic team -- it wasn't illegal. It wasn't personal," Rose said during his 42-minute stream. "When I'm on [NBA] Countdown, that's like a news show, right? When I'm on 'Jalen & Jacoby,' that's for entertainment. That's variety. One is a news show. One is a variety show. On a news show, you've got to have all facts, pretty much. On a variety show, it's your personality, it's your opinion. It's your knowledge, it's your expertise. It's how can you continue to entertain the people and be creative with doing it. And I always took pride in doing that.
"If I feel like Kevin Love should make the team or not, I’m entitled to my opinion," he continued. "But you know why I’m apologizing right now? To the game. Because I’m what the game made me, not what the fame made me, no amount of money can change me, I'm what you lames can't be" he said. "I was raised by the all-time greats as I mention. And you know what I would never want to do? Disappoint [Rose’s late mother] Jeanie Rose or disappoint the all-time greats that raised me."
But while he may have apologized, Rose also didn't back down from his comments, in which he stated that Love's selection to Team USA came as the result of what he viewed as white "tokenism." The former "Fab Five" star also stated that as a former player, he's privy to information that others aren't, which is one of the reasons he regrets saying what he did.
"If I feel like Kevin Love didn't deserve to make the team and I feel like it may be something racially motivated that caused him to make the team ... if I feel that, I shouldn't say it," Rose said. "What a lot of people don't realize is when you see a former player and they're talking about the game past, present or future, they really can only tell the world a fraction, maybe 20 percent, of what we really know. Because everything ain't for everybody."
While Rose's initial apology was directed at "the game" and its all-time greats such as Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas, the Detroit native eventually made his way to Love. To be sure, Rose made it clear he didn't believe the UCLA product deserved to make Team USA, going as far as to joke that the 2012 gold medalist must have been surprised when he got the call.
"To Kevin Love, I'm sorry. Not that I believe that you deserve to make the team," Rose said. "I’m pretty sure when you got the call too you were like ‘Word? I’m on the squad?’ I know how this works, y'all. I do this for a living. He looked down at his phone and was like, ‘Yo, they want me? They’re going to ignore these Cleveland Cav lost tape years?' I know they all saw the play against Toronto."
Rose also acknowledged that he was aware that the United States had previously sent all-Black men's basketball teams to the Olympics and said that he knew that when he made his comments.
Asked earlier this week about Love's Olympics selection, USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo pointed to the 6-foot-8 forward-center's international experience, as well as his shooting and rebounding abilities. He also noted that in putting together a roster, Team USA isn't always necessarily looking to pick the 12 best available players.
"Who's to say how many minutes anybody's going to play? You're not playing 12 players," Colangelo said. "So it was a matter of filling out the roster with role players. I think back to our first Olympics team in '08 where we selected some players who were not frontline guys but they really had a role. I'm thinking of guys like Michael Redd coming off the bench as a shooter and we had others who had a specific role."