Ben Simmons may be dunking all over his opponents and flirting with triple-doubles every night – he’s averaging 18/9/8, by the way – but the biggest news to come out of Philadelphia recently has to do with… food?
Inspired by Simmons’ (and to a degree, head coach Brett Brown’s) Australian background, the 76ers have recently decided to start selling meat pies at their home games in the Wells Fargo Center in Philly.
Now, it’s safe to assume that most Americans have never eaten a meat pie, but ESPN reporter Darren Rovell decided that he would give it a shot, and posted a video on Twitter of him digging in, which you can see in the video player above.
There’s a lot going wrong in that video. Rovell takes a knife to the defenceless pie, cutting it into pieces until it’s unrecognizable, before eating it without tomato sauce.
Predictably, there was a serious backlash from offended Australians everywhere, as Rovell suddenly found himself at the centre of a bit of an international incident.
darren the public desecration of a four n' twenty pie in the manner of which you have just done is a declaration of war as per the australian constitution we will see you on the battlefield
— wheels (@wheelswordsmith) November 20, 2017
That. Is. Not. How. You. Eat. A Meat. Pie https://t.co/U9O46Bati6
— Andrew Brown (@AndrewBrownAU) November 20, 2017
If you eat a meat pie like this you deserve life behind bars???♂️ https://t.co/y72ILwGwr4
— Jarrad (@JarradHD) November 21, 2017
Even the police got involved:
Steady on, you could get cautioned for treating a meat pie like that ? #FreshPrince https://t.co/o0SgyKxqat
— Queensland Police (@QldPolice) November 20, 2017
In his defence, Rovell was at least able to recognise the error of his ways, taking to Twitter to apologise:
I have been destroyed all day for how I apparently tested out the Australian meat pie being offered at 76ers games. Now that the police are involved, I would like to extend my sincere apologies. https://t.co/HNa24A5YGc
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) November 20, 2017
Hopefully, Americans everywhere can use this incident as a lesson and proceed to eat meat pies properly (two hands, sauce on top) in the future.
We’re still waiting for Simmons to offer his thoughts on the controversy.
Build your own ultimate team! Pick your key players and take a shot at big cash prizes every day with Draftstars. For great odds on NBA games every day head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.
If people can lose their job, and clubs can face massive payouts, due to the behaviour of coaches, it will drastically change the way sporting teams in Australia will be run.
A Serbian, a Canadian, a Slovenian and a Greek fellow walked into a bar … Well, they’ve actually walked into the NBA and now…
Nikola Jokic has scored 32 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead defending NBA champions Denver past LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers…
There will undoubtedly be upset results here and there in the NBA playoffs but there’s an overwhelming sense of fait accompli that Boston will…
LeBron James is going back to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years. Steph Curry is headed to the games for the…
The only realistic threat to Boston’s chances of strolling through the Eastern Conference is a team that could still end up in the play-in…
