This Chris Webber Interview Got Awkward After A Question About Jalen Rose

Chris Webber was a guest on Doug Gottlieb’s radio show on Thursday afternoon, coming on the show to discuss the masters class he’ll be teaching at Wake Forest next year. The course, which will be a part of the documentary film program, intends to focus on sports, race and culture and will draw heavily from Webber’s personal experiences growing up.

After a pretty tame and uneventful start to the interview, their discussion got heated pretty quickly after Gottlieb asked Webber about Jalen Rose. Both Webber and Rose were key members of the Michigan Wolverines’ infamous Fab Five squad in the early ’90s and went on to have fantastic NBA careers. They were once close friends but it’s clear that they’re not exactly friendly with each other these days.

Webber, whose relationship with Michigan remains pretty complicated, declined to partake in the ESPN-produced 30 for 30 documentary about the Fab Five. Around the documentary’s release, he made comments on The Dan Patrick Show insinuating that Rose tried to make himself appear more important than he actually was to the story. Rose didn’t exactly take those comments kindly.

Chris Webber, Jalen Rose
Getty Image

To his credit, Webber seems to have learned his lesson about talking trash toward Rose publicly, as he was having absolutely none of Gottlieb’s baiting on Thursday. Webber refused to bite on the question(s) regarding their relationship and repeatedly told the host he would like to move on. Unfortunately, Gottlieb didn’t seem to get the message and attempted to explain why he was asking about Rose, which only seemed to agitate and anger Webber further.

Ultimately, the whole exchange threw the interview off the rails and forced Gottlieb to wrap it up before things got any uglier. Webber signed off by promising that his Wake Forest course would be “a lot more fun than this interview,” which is a pretty fantastic way to drop the mic on a radio host.

If you’d like to listen to the entire interview, you can do so here.

(Via CBS Sports)

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