For Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle, controversial sports dad LaVar Ball is being given an unnecessary platform to broadcast his acerbic takes. While that is not necessarily a new thing, what irked him the most of late was a story by ESPN’s Jeff Goodman in which Ball made inflammatory comments about Luke Walton’s head coaching of the Los Angeles Lakers. Carlisle let his true feelings be known about it prior to a game against the New York Knicks Sunday at home.

Via the Star Telegram:

As president of the Coaches Association, I view the recent ESPN article as a disgrace. Quite honestly. Luke Walton is a terrific young coach who is bringing along a young team and it’s a difficult task. If you don’t believe it ask me, we’re going through that now and we were going through it last year.

Ball’s comments came almost a month after he reportedly had a sit-down meeting with Lakers’ top brass, who asked him to tone down on his hot remarks about the Lakers, the team that currently has his first son, Lonzo, in its fold.

It’s not surprising to hear Carlisle step in front of Walton, considering that he also serves as President of NBA Coaches Association. Carlisle does not believe that ESPN had to run that piece from Goodman, or at least include LaVar’s scathing remarks primarily because he thinks it damages the symbiosis between the NBA and ESPN.

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ESPN is a partner, an NBA partner and they’ve been a great one. But part of that partnership is that…the coaches do a lot of things to help them with access, interviews, all those kinds of things. And in exchange for that they should back up the coaches. Printing an article where the father of an NBA player has an opinion that is printed as anything legitimate erodes trust.

Media outlets are expected to run without bias, but Carlisle’s comments tend to lean on the idea that institutions that cover the NBA should pick and choose stories they will run according to what coaches would feel okay with.

In any case, this is another development that LaVar’s unstoppable mouth has caused.