Jalen Rose: Steve Fisher Is "Collateral Damage" from Chris Webber Lying and Non-Apology

Steve Fisher, who coached San Diego State for the last 18 years is best known as the coach of the Fab Five at Michigan, retired earlier this week. Because of how things went down at the end of his Michigan tenure, with multiple Final Four appearances and 113 wins vacated after federal investigators determined that booster Ed Martin paid four players a total of over $600,000, Fisher has not been celebrated in accordance with his teams’ accomplishments on the court.

Jalen Rose is not happy about that. He told ESPN’s Dana O’Neil:

"“He absolutely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and if it doesn’t happen, it goes back to where he was implicated in something he was not guilty of,” Rose told ESPN.com. “Chris Webber didn’t own what he did and still hasn’t apologized, and there’s been a lot of collateral damage because of that, the number one person [affected by that collateral damage] being Steve Fisher. He wasn’t the person who lied to the grand jury. He’s not the person not choosing to apologize or reconcile any of that. Yet what he accomplished doesn’t get recognized.”"

Rose doesn’t think this is fair, compared to how John Calipari has been treated:

"“Because of Chris lying to the grand jury, the banners aren’t hung for a coach who coached in three national championship games,” Rose said. “It’s like he never coached in them. There’s nothing to acknowledge his accomplishments. Not to compare, but that’s why I affectionately call my good friend, John Calipari, Teflon John. They hung a banner for him.”"

The animosity between Webber and Rose is not new — when the Fab Five edition of 30 for 30 came out in 2015, there was a series of interviews in which they were criticizing each other back and forth.