A thread to talk about NBA Podcasts / Personalities / Announcers / Shows / Broadcasters / Commentators

espn shuffling nba countdown again:

SOURCES: BEADLE, PIERCE, BILLUPS OUT AT ESPN’S “COUNTDOWN”

only Jalen is staying on

i like chauncey, paul is awful obvs

jalen, u cant fire jalen

chauncey is fine just boring. beadle seemed fine? idk the whole show needs to be re-thought. try something totally different.

that show is really and truly wretched... jalen actually is prob the only good one

honestly i really enjoyed scott van pelt's coverage of game 5 on his special edition of sportscenter they should just give postgame to him

beadle seemed really disengaged most of the time. none of them had any chemistry.

agree. i love the final sportscenter with ScottVP. great format

yeah its good

players only is done.

Via sources: TNT will no longer air the Players Only NBA broadcast. Turner Sports will likely do some Players Only content but as far as games for the 2019-20 season, the Players Only broadcast on TNT is no more.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) July 24, 2019

a not-bad idea that was horribly executed.

i did enjoy some players only broadcasts but when it was bad it was insufferable... they also did it too often. would've liked to see them tweak a bit but oh well

yah you both are otm. kinda wish they tried to hone it to a good spot and adapt it rather than dump it completely but the naysayers were pretty harsh on it from the start.

i think they'd just need to be more selective about the scheduling... it was a cool vibe for those middle of the season thursday night west coast TNT games that are like blazers vs rockets or whatever. but sometimes they'd get a good game where you actually wanna hear real announcers and it would be like, why'd anyone think this was a good idea

by good game i mean big game

yeah there was one where there was some crazy shotmaking going on between two good teams and i think on a big go ahead bucket greg anthony was like "well that was a really nice look there ... well executed" or some monotone platitude and all i wanted was a breen BAAAAANG or w/e

yup all otm

Matt Barnes is the future imo

barnes is good breaking down the game and what not from the little postgame and The Jump clips ive seen but not sure about entertaining for a 2.5 hour broadcast. its really a hard skill, even the best at it get bad after a while (van gundy).

an idea for players only would be to rotate different guys in and out like a quarter at a time or something

Players only being gone is good but questionable stuff is going on. They got rid of The Starters, Kamla gone. Seems like cost cutting for no reason.

yeah wonder what their plan is, if anything

Ros and Fratello out at nba/tnt

Fitz as Hannity I’m guessing because on his (recently canceled) radio show he would defend literally everything the warriors org did and would just really go over the top praising Myers/Jacobs/Kerr etc

oh duh i totally read matts post wrong thought he was talking about jim barnett. fitz is a goof yeah.

Main issue with Fitz on KNBR is that they lost the Warriors rights to 95.7, so it was less of a natural fit having him on the network. Radnich "retiring" plus Greg Papa moving over just made it a good time for housecleaning. They absorbed Fitz's co-host Rob Brooks into Tom Tolbert's show, which has been pretty bad so far.

Rod* Brooks

yeah I was irrationally bummed by the knbr shakeup

Russillo leaving ESPN for the Ringer

So...the news is out. I’m headed to @ringer
Want to thank @espn for the last 14 years.
I grew up on @SportsCenter and then to be on the actual set, my name on a show...have to remind myself at times how cool that is
Excited to try and limit Celts talk to 30mins w/ @BillSimmons

— Russillo (@ryenarussillo) August 6, 2019

he didn't already work for the ringer?

he did dual duty but now it seems he’s going to be exclusive to the ringer

I like russillo a lot, he’s a pretty independent thinker, does his homework, and is funny. he’s always right on the edge of being arrogant and being in on the joke. he’s either a thoughtful meathead or the reverse, can’t really tell for sure

love him yeah. he's the best bill guest for sure, they are pretty in sync when they do their pod

him or lowe yeah

yeah Lowe is only like once or twice a year tho

i didn't know him before but i've grown to really like him over the course of his appearances on bill's pod....his sense of humor is very dry and weird and mostly based on really subtle and quick meta jokes about being a media talking head. he's also good on actual sports. i don't always agree with his nba takes but he definitely comes to them from an authentic place.

he did this bit on bill's pod a couple months ago about his worst year ever and it was just him factually describing shitty things happening to him as a broke and directionless dude in his 20s. it was so good it was almost poetic.

yeah the 2002 rant was so good. I was in hermosa/Manhattan beach last week and was hoping id run into him roller blading or something lol.

omg i just found it again, the part where he proposes to his elementary school teacher gf at the school in front of children and she says no is classic material

sometimes he and bill get a liiiittle too bro-y for me... but as far as basketball goes he def knows his shit

one thing i do hate about them is they have this tic where they refer to anything as "the [x] thing" ... "and then the brogdon thing happened" "are we gonna talk about the griffin thing" and sometimes they'll just refer to a "thing" esp from the past where you're like wait that's a thing? i really hate it

haha they def overdo the "thing" thing

hope they dont oversaturate and only do like once every few weeks or something (probably wont happen)

bill misses a lot of his jokes I think

KG's Area 21 cancelled.

lotta restlessness with nba broadcasts this offseason

for the starters heads: https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/the-starters-join-the-athletic.html

nice for those dudes. athletic always seemed like a good fit.

https://nypost.com/2019/10/08/michelle-beadle-buyout-rachel-nichols-rise-espns-nba-power-shift-is-complete/

Dwyane Wade has signed a wide-ranging multiyear deal with WarnerMedia. He'll be a TNT NBA analyst, do studio appearances for Turner/CBS at the Final Four, work on projects for Bleacher Report - and his production company, 59th & Prairie, got a development deal for new content.

— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) October 22, 2019

trophy husband trying to be useful around the house

lol he's going to be insanely boring

i personally do find the lakers compelling at the moment due to the early hype increasing the chances of combustibility

too bad they didnt start out on fire

Had a laker friend send me a text “3-0” after the third game talking big lol haven’t heard from him since regarding the lakers