In the hours before Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday, ESPN desk analyst Kendrick Perkins fielded a contrived gambling question about whether or not Chet Holmgren would score 15 points. His reasoning was that Holmgren would, since the Oklahoma City Thunder big had expressed frustration with his previous performance. Or anyway, that's all the reasoning Perkins could fit in before Stephen A. Smith cut him off to scream about how his co-host was annoying him, because things are different in the NBA Finals. Right before the segment mercifully cut to commercial, Bob Myers mounted a defense of Perkins that wound up being a scathing indictment of the whole operation. "Just because you yell something, doesn't mean it's true," he said.
ESPN's NBA Finals broadcast was the last edition under the existing TV deal, and though the Worldwide Leader retained those rights in the new agreement, the setup will look different next season out of necessity. That should be good news for viewers, who had to endure not only the agonizingly dull NBA Countdown crew anchored by Smith and Perkins, but also the stilted broadcast booth with Mike Breen, Doris Burke, and Richard Jefferson. By Game 5, I was feeling nostalgic for the brief era of JJ Redick. ESPN's seven broadcasters were handed a competitive, entertaining Finals, and added little value to it. With every halftime visit to the desk, I was scrambling for the mute button like Tony Reali.
Since TNT lost its NBA rights in the new deal, ESPN reached an agreement to bring over the Inside the NBA crew. NBA Countdown will still exist, though the point of acquiring TNT's iteration is presumably to get the Inside the NBA guys to serve as the broadcaster's marquee halftime show. And what a relief, since NBA Countdown is an extremely unpleasant watch. Although Myers can on occasion articulate interesting thoughts, and Andrews is a pro, the problem with NBA Countdown is that it's clearly striving to be Inside the NBA. It's as if the producers watched TNT's program and concluded that having two guys who don't really like or watch basketball yell at each other was the key to its success, rather than the chemistry and trust among its hosts.
Because ESPN and ABC hold the rights to the most consequential parts of the NBA postseason, they are a crucial intermediary between fans and the product on the screen. That means the network's choices reflect the ways it sees both itself and the broader state of basketball media and discourse. Smith's omnipresence on their broadcasts, then, is a dire sign. If ESPN prioritized informative or entertaining programming, surely it could find someone who watched or liked basketball. Instead, fans are left to deal with a man who sees his job as something closer to pro wrestling than analysis. There's something quite cynical about inflicting Smith on the nation as ruthlessly as ESPN has, which I think springs from an understanding that live TV is a form in decline. The point of Smith is to treat the studio desk show less as an addendum to the sport being broadcast and more like a small-batch meme production factory, a stage for the No. 1 solitaire fan to cut promos and decry the performances of NBA players in increasingly histrionic voices.
Thankfully, the broadcast crew is not as annoying as Smith. Still, it isn't a good booth. It's confusing, because I find each of Doris Burke, Mike Breen, and even occasionally Richard Jefferson to be engaging personalities. They all know ball at a high level and they can all be clever, yet when put together in a booth, they have a profound anti-chemistry that hampers all of them. Jefferson's role as a former player is to take fans within the game, though he bogs himself down by overexplaining basic stuff and generally talking to the viewer as if they are a child. He and Burke never quite figured out how to bounce off each other. Burke's been a color commentator for years, though she's at her best when she can riff and walk fans through plays. A three-person booth doesn't have quite the space for that, and Breen was left to manage "BANG" deficits and try to keep things on track.
The frustrating aspect of all this is that ESPN clearly knows how to put together a great TV crew for basketball. The WNBA desk and premier broadcast team is stellar. Ryan Ruocco and Rebecca Lobo have fantastic chemistry and manage to be both entertaining and informative. Elle Duncan, Chiney Ogwumike and Andraya Carter all know how to work around each other on WNBA Countdown. And when the core studio group pulls in Malika Andrews or Monica McNutt, or when LaChina Robinson joins the broadcast, the addition feels natural. There's also a lot less shouting.
The new NBA TV deal will force changes: NBC is returning to cover the sport, Amazon is joining for the first time, and ESPN will incorporate some of TNT's production. There will be new voices to call games and anchor studio shows, and they will add meaningful competition. Ideally, this busted Finals broadcast situation was merely transitional. With Inside the NBA on the way, ESPN wasn't going to pay real money for anyone new to do a Finals studio show, so it emptied the bench. After Redick became head coach of the Lakers last offseason, the network didn't really have another experienced player-commentator besides Jefferson to play his role. Hopefully next year's crew will be better equipped to handle the Thunder-Magic Finals.
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