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

lol yes

replacing chuck is probably an impossible job bcuz he created an entirely new role for an ex-player analyst that doesn't really feel repeatable, like threading this needle where your opinion is respected across the nba but also the whole shtick around you on TV is that you don't watch the games. it just seems like he's the only one that can really pull that off. draymond will have to figure out his own personality.

but i do think he brings his basketball intellect to the broadcasts in a real way, in the discussion on inside tonight about sixers-hawks he brought up how embiid was going to be able defend pick and rolls w/ his knee injury. it really felt like a good fusion between draymond the elite defender and draymond the announcer, whereas shaq was just, like, braying about how the hawks were going to win the series w/o raising any sort of intellectual point about the play

chuck is a regular at an expensive hotel bar in manhattan where a friend of mine works and she's struck up a bit of a friendship with him. she says he's a genuinely nice person who asks about her family, keeps track of the threads of their lives etc.

like threading this needle where your opinion is respected across the nba but also the whole shtick around you on TV is that you don't watch the games. it just seems like he's the only one that can really pull that off.

do you really think chuck’s opinion is “respected across the NBA” in 2021?

chuck is a regular at an expensive hotel bar in manhattan where a friend of mine works and she's struck up a bit of a friendship with him. she says he's a genuinely nice person who asks about her family, keeps track of the threads of their lives etc.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, June 3, 2021 9:15 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is cool btw and tracks with everything i've ever heard about the guy off-camera.

Yah phx folks have nothing but good to say about random encounters w him.

Jackie MacMullan, one of the most accomplished & respected journalists in sports, will retire from ESPN at the end of the month

Jackie appears Wednesday at 3p ET on #TheJump

Her final ESPN appearance is Tues, Aug. 31 on @AroundtheHorn

Thank you, Jackie!https://t.co/bI5gJJVCad pic.twitter.com/STfsIU5Uqk

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) August 18, 2021

sorta weird how she stopped going on ESPN basketball podcasts and started doing a bunch of appearances on bill simmons podcast, i feel like something happened there. i feel like the wording about how she's retiring "from ESPN" isn't necessarily accidental

she said some quasi racist shit about kyrie a few months back right

yeah, that was on bill's pod tho. she got pushed out of the rotation on windhorst's pod for whatever reason, can't remember the last time she went on lowe's pod either. maybe ESPN just told her they didn't want her on podcasts anymore and gave her the green light to be on bill's all the time

ah yeah maybe espn was just done with her and let her ~retire~ out of deference rather than fire her

i don't think there's any ill will--my guess is that she was planning to wind down her espn obligations and they wanted to highlight some other folks on windhorst's pod.

you can see it today in all the twitter tributes--jackie is pretty universally beloved and not a troublemaker.

I missed the controversy — thought she was mostly solid tho otherwise

"this is cool btw and tracks with everything i've ever heard about the guy off-camera."

My ex coworker is Chuck's 2nd cousin and says he was always a jackass at family functions.
She also went to high school with Quentin Richardson and said he was a stuck up asshole.

conflicting reports!

well people do mature. i imagine chuck was absolute hell on wheels when he was a teenager.

also not unheard of to be cool to strangers and a jackass to your family.

He comes across as very likeable and wayyyy more thoughtful in his autobiography vs his TV personality.

there are many stories of chuck being a jackass to strangers too tbf, i would like for the record to state that i do not care but these are the facts

do i need to tell my charles barkley story for the 100th time

yes

My dad was having dinner on the riverwalk in San Antonio once and saw a heavily intoxicated Sir Charles being carried by two people

Reports that Max Kellerman is going to be out on First Take, leaving Stephen A as solo host

Don't feel strongly about Kellerman but the way ESPN is quadrupling down on being the Stephen A Smith network is demented

hes just about the only draw they have any more

stephen a kicks ass but also if you're watching ESPN at like 10 am or whatever time that show is on there's bigger issues at play

kellerman seems like the one guy out there in the espn cinematic universe who consistently produces actually good controversial takes

I always liked Kellerman, seemed like a good guy to keep Stephen A. in check

stephen a kicks ass but also if you're watching ESPN at like 10 am or whatever time that show is on there's bigger issues at play

that's when I work out usually which is pretty much the only time I watch ESPN. I assume this is like half their viewership.

I like Stephen A Smith but he's also kind of a moron. he's an incredible showman though

do i need to tell my charles barkley story for the 100th time

― Clay, Wednesday, August 18, 2021 5:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, August 19, 2021 2:08 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

back in the mid-90's when ballboys were still *children* and not, like, college kids, i spent a season as a ballboy for the blazers, i was probably 14 or so? i worked maybe a quarter of the games that year, sitting under the hoop, mopping up sweat for the players and whatever other little duties we had. a truly wonderful thing to get to do when you're a kid who worships basketball players! rebounding and passing the ball to THE GUYS in pregame and at the half! getting yelled at constantly!

anyways, i think this was a year or two after chuck won MVP, 94-95. the suns are in portland and someone is shooting a free throw and i'm on the right side of the hoop, and in first rebounding position next to me is ol' chuckster. I'm staring off into the middle distance and daydreaming, as i still do too often when i should be paying attention to my surroundings, and i eventually realize someone is trying to get my attention. it's barkley, he's almost waving at me now. "HEY, KID, GIMME A TOWEL." I do the "who, me?" gesture and he says "YEAH YOU, THE UGLY ONE, THROW ME A TOWEL". so i throw this man, a living legend, a towel, and he wipes his disgusting dripping head clean of sweat and then tosses it back to me and says "THANKS STUPID, THANK UGLY. PSSSH."

https://www.landofbasketball.com/box_scores/1995/0409PHXPOR.htm
^ i think it was this game but not 100% positive

lmao how do i not remember this story????

back in the mid-90's... i was probably 14 or so?

(silently calculates Clay's age)

pretty sure ive said this before but we need to track down some clay game footage

Yah that’s a good story must secure footage

aimless if you do the simple math there it comes out to 22 years old, probably should have said that in the first place

a fun addendum to the story is that around 2011 or so this woman i had been dating for many years was working catering for some events group and ended up waiting on at a table near barkley's at a charity function. according to her story, he tried to flag her down for a drink refill and she told him she could not refill his drink because he wasn't in her section, and furthermore she would not because he called her boyfriend (that was me) ugly when he was a teenager. barkely responded "probably because he was ugly!" and then hit on her in a really gross fashion (ten years ago was a different time!)

I detect a stubborn insistence that you are not ugly, despite Chuck's eyewitness testimony!

sir charles was right, as usual!

barkley's go-to insult for women and children is "ugly"

tbf it is a classic

He meant your soul

pod listeners should check out windhorst's interview with the guy who wrote the new book about KD, kyrie, and the nets. i'm definitely picking that book up now.

there was an interesting discussion on — i believe — the most recent hollinger & duncan podcast about summer league from the front office perspective, how/why teams get put together etc. first 15-20 mins or so of the episode, i thought it was interesting

xp nice, ill check it. also the draymond sit down with KD was cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x6DjeJNd64

xp yeah i enjoyed that summer league roster construction discussion, very educational

to revisit the jackie talk above, she went on simmons pod and explained her retiring. she was one year into a three-year contract but between wanting to have time to care for aging parents and feeling like doing longform writing was getting harder while also being deemphasized by her employer, she was just kind of done.

the whole simmons angle vis a vis ESPN didn’t feel accidental to me, at least on his side

strauss is leaving the athletic to maybe not talk about the nba anymore?

https://houseofstrauss.substack.com/p/the-fleshy-part-of-the-thigh?r=11111&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter

i kinda feel that middle part

another step on the path to going fully right wing

yeah he might, he's always straddled the fence. maybe he joins up with bogut or something

can't wait to not pay for it lol

otm