During last night's 2018 NBA Awards Show, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Charles Barkley were brought on stage to present NBA legend Oscar Robertson with the Lifetime Achievement Award. However, the segment is best remembered by what happened when the cameras panned to 11-time NBA champion, Bill Russell.
As Barkley was addressing the crowd, he took some time to thank many of the NBA legends in attendance and when he got to Russell, the 84-year old held up his middle finger, unaware that he was on live TV.
Afterward, Russell took to twitter with the following apology, "Sorry everyone, I forgot it was live TV & I can’t help myself whenever I see Charles it just is pure instinct. #birdman"
Check out the footage, and the subsequent apology, in the tweets embedded below.
https://twitter.com/_/status/1011431981257822210
https://twitter.com/_/status/1011438471490072576
