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Dan Le Batard Mocks Nick Gilbert After Draft Lottery, Finally Takes Heat Defense Too Far

As the NBA Playoffs have heated up, Miami Herald columnist and 790 The Ticket ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard has taken on the role of public defender for his hometown Miami Heat, at times even admitting that he uses his unapologetic passion for the Heat to overcompensate for what he perceives as an anti-Heat sentiment in the media.

As a part of his pro-Heat stance, Le Batard has taken to mocking LeBron James’ former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and their owner, Dan Gilbert, referring to Gilbert as a “crazy person” for his post-Decision rant.

But in the process of trying to rain on the parade that was the Cavs walking away from last night’s NBA Draft Lottery with the No. 1 and No. 4 overall picks, Le Batard took things a little too far via his Twitter account. He tweeted:

Dan gilbert’s kid doing gang signs?

…referring to Gilbert’s son, Nick Gilbert, holding up his hand with his thumb and index fingers closed, and his remaining three fingers raised.

Apparently Le Batard was unaware of two things: that the hand sign Gilbert celebrated with was not a gang sign, but instead the “Goosey”, a hand signal adopted by the Cavs in the 2008-09 season to celebrate 3-point shots that has been much celebrated by the fan base, and more importantly, that 14-year-old Nick suffers from Neurofibromatosis, a nerve disorders that indiscriminately grows random tumors.

So here was Le Batard, who earlier yesterday was announced as the future host of his own show on ESPN2, mocking a 14-year-old kid who has endured brain surgery, has lost vision in one eye, and gone through four bouts of chemotherapy.

Le Batard, who despite his Heat bias always comes off in his columns and on his radio show as very self-aware and transparent, was quickly informed of Nick’s condition by his Twitter followers, and quickly apologized.

Jesus. My bad. Didn’t know that. Just tuned in. Had no idea he had a nerve disease. I’m now officially sick to my stomach

Sorry. Brutal mistake. Had no idea.

Le Batard has enough good will towards him built up that his tweet won’t affect any of his jobs – current or future – but it’s safe to say that going the positive route of his 790 The Ticket co-host, Jon “Stugotz” Weiner, would have been a safer move.