ESPN's NBA Team Sucks - Deadseriousness

Every year around the All-Star break when the NFL season is coming to an end and all our eyes are on the NBA, we are reminded of the massive separation in quality between TNT’s basketball coverage and ESPN’s.

ESPN NBA Countdown is a terrible pre-game show and an even worse halftime show. Mike Greenberg, Stephen A. Smith, Mike Wilbon and Jalen Rose sit at a table and speak about the NBA with the keen eye of a blind person. They truly get in there and dissect the game with the dullest knife. Describing their coverage as “surface level” is like describing Kendall Roy as charming. Their knowledge of the league seems to come exclusively from the note sheets provided to them by lower-level employees and the brief highlights they in what I can imagine is extremely limited pre-show meetings.

Stephen A. Smith’s schtick of yelling like a guest pastor who has never actually read the bible and who doesn’t have their own church because they have a sketchy past and has to freestyle his Sunday sermon while hungover from the night before has long lost its charm. He stumbles and repeats himself as he uses the same exaggerated cadence over and over to make the most basic points any casual basketball fan can make from the highlights they randomly scroll past on their newsfeeds.

I’ve complained about Stephen A’s nonsense enough but there is nothing weirder than the frequency in which he pretends to have inside sources backing up all of his takes. Instead of going on TV and just calling Ben Simmons a baby, he chooses to lie about some source telling him that’s what the Sixers think so he gets to hide his own opinions behind a faux source, ya know, like a fucking baby.

Mike Wilbon turns every conversation into a historical debate.

We don’t need to constantly compare current players to Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. I understand Wilbon’s frame of reference is the 80s but Chris Paul can have a great game without Wilbon forcing a comparison with Isiah Thomas’s Detroit Pistons run. Cool, you want to give credit to an older generation of ballplayers but like, who cares? Just talk about Nikola Jokic being great and leave Bill Walton out of this.

Jalen Rose has mastered the television speaking cadence to the point it has become so distracting. I’ve never heard a human talk the way Rose does. He speaks like every word he’s saying is so clever and thought-provoking. He talks to the audience like a middle school guest speaker for D.A,R.E.

I don’t want Jalen Rose sounding sneaky like he’s tricking me. He talks to the camera like he’s trying to gaslight a curvy international IG model whose English is shaky. Talk like you’re talking to your friends and not like you’re manipulating a television audience.

And I’d be remiss to leave out ESPN’s insistence on waterboarding us with Mike Greenberg’s nervous dad energy the company believes to be charming. He’s a good host, whatever that means, but there is no reason why ESPN has decided Greenberg should be on their air 24/7. At least Ernie Johnson adds his own personality to the TNT set. Greenberg’s entire personality is early 1980’s nervous Woody Allen stand-up sets with an overabundance of unnecessary Jets fandom as if he is the only human who likes that team.

You never feel like you’re listening to a unique perspective or new idea. No one on NBA Countdown will ever break down the LeBron James and Austin Reeves pick n roll dynamic. They’d rather argue about Russell Westbrook because they don’t actually watch Lakers games and they probably all still think it’s the same Avery Bradley who made an impact on the Boston Celtics in 2015 when he shouldn’t be on a basketball court in 2022.

When you think you’re getting a break from NBA Countdown and you’re ready to watch some actual basketball, Jeff Van Gundy gets on the mic and spends the entire length of the game complaining about every single rule and foul call. It’s insane to watch a basketball game while the broadcast spends all its energy hating the product they’re supposed to be promoting. Why not explain why the refs are making the decision their making—as opposed to telling us how much you disagree with every single call?

Thankfully, Mark Jackson and Mike Breen don’t fully participate in Van Gundy’s bullshit but they encourage his behavior. It’s so odd to have the voice of your biggest games be a guy who hates watching the games. Jeff Van Gundy talks about basketball as if he is forced to do so in order for some rogue group of criminals to release his children from confinement

I cannot sit and listen to Stephen A. Smith shit on Kevin Durant while giving off the impression he knows Durant personally to add credibility to his terrible takes. It has gotten to the point where everything Stephen A. Smith says is based on a personal beef he has with players who refuse to acknowledge him.

Is there no one in the building who can break down film and explain to us the x’s and o’s? Or do we just have to compare every player to Michael Jordan with the most basic and simple analysis possible?

Dear ESPN, please hire people who watch basketball every night to talk about basketball every night.

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