Every day is the same when watching ESPN’s “First Take”, the most popular cable sports analysis show. Longtime host Stephen A. Smith goes on a minutes-long tangent regarding the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award race and declares who he believes should be the front-runner—Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is his choice. Then his guest analysts, ESPN.com writer Brian Windhorst and former NBA player Kendrick Perkins, chime in. The table gets into a heated debate because Perkins believes Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserves to take home this honor this season.
After 15 minutes of back-and-forth, they are on to the following subject. Nothing positive is said about the players or the NBA in general throughout the segment. Rather than uplifting each player during their debate, the roundtable puts the two down simply for the sake of their respective arguments.
Negativity has been the common theme throughout this NBA season, from both fans and the media. Thousands of fans on social media jeered during All-Star Weekend because of the new tournament-style format for the game. They claim that the league was dying and not the same as when they were growing up. I’m sure some fans have genuine reservations about today’s game; everyone has preferences and is entitled to them. However, I wonder how much of this pessimistic discourse towards the league stems from the narrative created by sports media.
Talking heads across the major sports networks have propped up the sentiment of yearning for the days of old in the NBA over the past few seasons. During basketball games on TNT, you can hear three former NBA players in Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny Smith, spend an entire thirty minutes on how today’s players are soft, play zero defense, and just shoot three-pointers. In one of his most recent appearances, O’Neal rants about how he would make the NBA’s youngest superstar, Victor Wembanyama, cry if they ever played against each other. How can a fan think favorably about today’s league if this is what they are hearing from the NBA’s largest media figures?
Their show, “Inside the NBA,” is often revered as one of the greatest analyst crews to cover the NBA, with the backlash from their impending cancellation causing the show to stay on, operating independently from the games, despite TNT losing television rights from the NBA following this season. Sure, their insight as former players can be useful when describing the “inside baseball” of the league. However, from their shows across recent years, it’s clear that they lack a true passion for today's league.
Podcasts, often run by former players, have emerged as a popular form of media covering the NBA. The feelings that O’Neal, Barkley, and Smith have are seen at their fullest extent on the player-run shows, likely because there is no cable company or advertisers they have to answer to.
Former three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas spends the majority of his show reacting to recent basketball games, telling viewers how he could have easily beaten today’s players when he was in his prime. Arenas’ podcast, “No Chill Gil,” has amassed millions of followers across different social media platforms, and fans often leave without any real insight about today’s game.
The issue here is not solely about the former players becoming prominent voices, but instead that they are the only voices covering the NBA. Sports journalists whose beat is the NBA have been relegated to posting one-sentence updates on social media whenever a significant event happens, without any further analysis. Let’s take ESPN’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania, who posts on Twitter at all times of the day, covering a breaking news story. Chariana then follows with a 200-word article on ESPN that no one reads, likely because they lack any major substance and read as just a longer form of his twenty-word social media post from a few hours ago. If you’re lucky, you’ll maybe find a quote from someone on the inside connected to the news. Suppose a major injury happens to a player on a contending team. In that case, there is no analysis from insiders such as Chariana on the implications that could have for the team, leaving this for the talking heads, who also lack the information needed for a story like this. This phenomenon is to no fault of Chariana's, but rather where to the priorities of ESPN regarding their coverage.
As an NBA insider, Chariana should be seen by fans as the point man for in-depth analysis surrounding the league because he is passionate about today’s NBA. Instead, ESPN’s point man is Stephen A., who just spent the past month getting into arguments with one of the league’s best players in LeBron James, all while defaming him publicly on national television by falsely claiming that he did not attend the deceased Basketball Hall-of-Fame guard Kobe Bryant’s funeral. How are those antics supposed to promote a positive culture around the NBA?
Coaches in the NBA have finally started to stand up against the negative coverage, with Los Angeles Lakers head coach, JJ Redick, pointing to the members of “Inside the NBA” along with others as a catalyst for the NBA’s recent ratings dip. During a press conference in December, Redick told reporters that no one is willing to represent the league in a positive way, and how talented the league is. “If I’m a fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, then I’m not going to watch the product,” Redick said. “That’s basically what has happened over the past 10-15 years.”
It is completely normal for major sports leagues to evolve over time. Players become more skilled at the game, causing new play styles to emerge in favor of ones from years past. Resistance to change is also acceptable, but no one wins when that resistance is actively promoted at the top of sports media.
Twenty years ago, former NBA players were pushed to the side when they would try to paint the league in a negative light—people knew that their cynical outlook likely came from their pride in playing in a different era. Give the mic to individuals who are passionate about the game now, not ones who are passionate about the game from two decades ago.