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

here i’ll type out something more that maybe will elicit a response beyond “so do you know that other people work on the television show too? and that it’s aired on ESPN, which is owned by disney???”

so i think one of the main differences nowadays is that the original class of sports shouters — skip & stephen a etc or on the less extreme end guys like wilbon & kornheiser — didn’t routinely express frustration about the practice of going on TV to talk about sports. i’m sure stephen a or skip has sat on air and yelled “why are we talking about this instead of that!” but it’s not in the context of guys like windhorst and lowe who are telling one audience — their favored audience — “this is REALLY what i wanna talk about, but my bosses make me go over there multiple times per week to talk to this other audience about this other stuff that bores me.” if the wilbons of the world were that conflicted about the gig, the checks kept them quiet. but now ESPN has stratified content streams that, for lack of better terms, serve you either dumb stuff or smart stuff. and there’s a big enough consumer class for the smart stuff that the famous journalists within that niche at ESPN are now being asked by their bosses to participate in the dumb content too, and of course those people are going to say yes for reasons of money, fame, easier work etc — same as those older guys. it just falls on deaf ears for me for them to participate in this dynamic, and be enriched by it, but then also complain about how much they have to talk with kendrick perkins about the lakers. i think lowe & windhorst could have long, healthy, lucrative careers at ESPN or not at ESPN without accelerating into afternoon talking head land, but that would require, at the very least, turning money down and the shedding of some level of ambition. but if you’re taking the check to do lucrative but lousy work and it’s affecting how much you can enjoy the rest of your job that’s something you should be working out w/ your therapist & not your basketball podcast listening audience, imo

good description of the situation. but personally speaking it doesn't impede my enjoyment of the pods, and there is some unintentional comedy associated with someone as hapless and dorky as zach lowe, at least, trying not to denigrate the opinions of guys like perk. now if espn starts pushing him to have guys like that on the pod as his guests, that would be a different story. honestly i already feel that way a bit about bobby marks, though i have no idea if zach just likes having him on so much. i also put windy in a different category, i don't find him to be a particularly incisive basketball mind. he could probably cash in his rep and audience and do like the marc stein thing and start a substack and do fine, but the "dumb" side of the biz is more his natural habitat. otoh, hearing him moderate mcmahon and bontemps, and those 3 very different people try to coexist on the hoop collective, is probably the most entertaining thing going in this whole scene right now, non-hoops analysis division

i should clarify - i know that bobby marks is doing something very different from perk, and i *guess* he has some expertise and insider knowledge to go on. but it is rare that i feel like he has anything to add to what zach would be telling me on his own. he almost never voices a dissenting opinion

windy knows the league but he doesnt really know ball

jordan otm re complaining about going on tv being a ridiculous thing, no ones making you go on tv

btw why is scal lowes goto celtics guy i dont even hate scal like many do but we get enough of him talking get some writer on there like for every other team

hes looking a lil queasy today

https://i.imgur.com/iDt2r0I.png

windy knows the league but he doesnt really know ball

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 3:31 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he's a newspaper beat writer at heart, which is one reason i like him

the amount of times now that zach lowe makes a point and then stops to note what kendrick perkins’ rock brained response to said point was or would be is harming my ability to enjoy his podcast by like 1-2%

it’s cool bobby marks is around to be, like, the public’s GM when it comes to cap situations and what not. but as a podcast guest it’s def like turning on a baseball game and seeing the fifth starter out there

scal is really good on this episode actually lol

he's a newspaper beat writer at heart, which is one reason i like him

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 4:42 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like him too for the record and i like his focus on league stuff

the amount of times now that zach lowe makes a point and then stops to note what kendrick perkins’ rock brained response to said point was or would be is harming my ability to enjoy his podcast by like 1-2%

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 2:43 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol otm

its a funny tic he just has to get it out he still cant say perks opinions are dumb but he knows people will understand

lakers talk is out of hand lmao

After Shannon Sharpe predicted the Lakers would sweep the Thunder, JJ Redick wants to know why he's so obsessed with how long the series would go.

JJ: "Does it matter how many games it goes?"

Stephen A. Smith: "It does."

JJ: "Why?"

SAS: "It's not good to get swept."

JJ: "OK,… pic.twitter.com/kK9iXE5E7h

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 5, 2024

jordan very otm and it is a good life lesson in general!!

constant lakers coverage is tedious but it is funny how it gaslights their fans into thinking theyre better than they are and they get really mad when they lose

i do think there is a distinction between lowe suffering brain damage from trying to sincerely engage with perk or even a lightweight like chiney ogwunike, and windhorst sideyeing lakers fixation. the latter is just being a good midwesterner.

since the mavs started losing this is what nba media is doing now, good luck fellas

https://i.imgur.com/SUhZGjH.png

amazing that perk is such a prominent broadcaster, considering it's been apparent since his playing days that he's one of the dumbest people who ever came through the league

tbf being a dumb guy is an extremely common and popular mode for sports talkers

I listened to sports talk radio for the vast majority of the last 20 years of driving, but recently cut almost all of it out and its been such a relief not being bombarded by such stupidity all the time. I can't believe I did this to myself all these years.

the "WE DONE WITH THE 90s" thing on social media is pretty interesting, kids are going back and actually watching the games

the tv guys who played then should try it

watching 90s games is brutal tbh

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3G6J2ArWaY/?igsh=MTVkbjZpa2d6N200ZQ==

always loved that clip and that simmons has no idea whats going on

he wants to be part of the fun tho

don’t we all

finally dawned on zach lowe that kd despite crazy regular season numbers isnt the player he once was, he even referenced that celtics-nets series, which was two years ago for the record

yeah i heard that from lowe too. kd's stats are still efficient, but by the eye test it's pretty clear he's lost a step. He's also playing the 5th most minutes per game in the league, one of many hard-to-defend suns decisions from the past year

https://theathletic.com/5350547/2024/03/18/lebron-james-jj-redick-podcast/?source=user_shared_article

“a pure conversation about basketball” lol

for the pure heads

“This is like two wine masters, sommeliers, talking about wine, not necessarily you or me arguing if I like Burgundy or Bordeaux better,” said Carter, the co-founder and CEO of Uninterrupted.

...

In one clip from the forthcoming podcast, viewed by The Athletic, the setting is very casual, with the hosts drinking red wine and talking in great detail about how to guard a pick play.

its a wine podcast

Love pods of rich folks talking about wine. Thrilling.

Lamar Odom and Caitlyn Jenner are starting a Sports podcast together, per @TMZ_Sports

(h/t @Sportico ) pic.twitter.com/t21XrSAZr4

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 18, 2024

jesus lol

just what we need

two more wine masters, sommeliers if you will

we need to put a pause to podcasts until we figure out what’s going on

theres a celtics podcast where two of the three hosts are australian

why does zach lowe love the mavs so much

had to turn off the ep him and the guest were talking so wild

the mavs can beat anyone, if zion can guard kawhi then...

mo dakhil is useless, i have no idea what he says that is supposed to be interesting

yeah not great stuff

more like less dakhil

ayy