ESPN’s Terrible Draft Coverage

[hippesthippo]

I think what was a bit shocking was the cheap feel to it. Like this is the kind of draft coverage you get when a producer begins the process with "what do we have in storage". The sets felt cheap, the graphics were recycled and often completely missing (team depth charts), nobody knew what they were talking about, the commissioner looks like a goblin, backstage looked like it was decorated by a prom committee, etc, etc, etc. This is a multi billion dollar sports league in conjunction with a multi billion dollar sports entertainment medium and they couldn't afford one guy with a little charisma who did nothing but scout these pics so somebody on that dais knew who these people were. That's just shamefully second rate and both the NBA and ESPN ought to be ashamed of themselves.

It took the production team close to an hour to figure out that Bub Carrington and Kyshawn George were not the same person.

[FarBeyondDriven]

ESPN in general has been a hot mess since Trump broke them and they went political in 2015. They've completely stopped reporting on hockey and baseball. It's pretty much only NBA (and now laughably WNBA) and NFL 95% of the time.

Please avoid political derailing. -b

[FrodoFraggins]

SAS was almost as out of place as he was for UFC events. The whole thing was unwatchable so I just kept checking the picks on the web.

[boomershadow]

Old Man Shouting at Clouds Rant

Why do fans watch the draft? Most NBA fans do not follow college ball and the vast majority do not follow European leagues. We have no idea who these players are.

I didn't.

[Hornet Mania]

I mentioned this in another thread, but worth pointing out again.

ESPN spent three times as much airtime interviewing Kyle Filipowski (who wasn't even drafted that night) about his outfit than they did discussing the 6th overall selection in the draft. A foreign player who fans needed more info about, and a guy who fit the 'big night for France' theme they were pushing at that point.

That network utterly failed on both nights of the draft, though the second round was more pathetic. If Adam Silver can look at this and think it's fine he is an idiot. The league office needs to privately dress down ESPN for this crap. Compare it to the much better job the same network does for the NFL. The association split their draft over two nights to try to recreate some of the NFL's success and ESPN vomited out that miserable programming in response. At minimum the NBA needs solid assurances this **** show won't happen again if they insist on making it a two night event.

[shrink]

Round 2 looked like they put up some green screens in the back of their break room.

[DOT]

I have many issues with how ESPN does the NFL draft and Mel Kiper as a whole, but at the very least if you watch that he can come on for a pick in the 7th round and give you a basic rundown of who the guy is and what he does well

The only time they've been stumped was when my Jags too Quincy Williams in the 3rd in 2019, and while it wasn't with us, dude just had an All Pro year for the Jets this past year

Meanwhile Stephen A Smith is on there going "I have no idea who this is" at Matas Buzelis, who went 11th and was talked about as a top 10 pick all year. Yeah, I don't know who a lot of these people are too especially once we get to the 2nd round, but it's not my job to know them, and I'm not asking for $25 million a year.

[cdubbz]

Old Man Shouting at Clouds Rant

Why do fans watch the draft? Most NBA fans do not follow college ball and the vast majority do not follow European leagues. We have no idea who these players are.

Exactly so I would want a sports network to inform us on the players and their games in depth. but nah ESPN focuses on other things.

[bisme37]

I'm still mad they completely ignored several draftees while they were talking about Bronny. Absolutely rude and bizarre. Kids are watching the draft with their families waiting/hoping for their big moment and ESPN didn't even say their name out loud.

Read on Twitter

[shmoosicle]

I think what was a bit shocking was the cheap feel to it. Like this is the kind of draft coverage you get when a producer begins the process with "what do we have in storage". The sets felt cheap, the graphics were recycled and often completely missing (team depth charts), nobody knew what they were talking about, the commissioner looks like a goblin, backstage looked like it was decorated by a prom committee, etc, etc, etc. This is a multi billion dollar sports league in conjunction with a multi billion dollar sports entertainment medium and they couldn't afford one guy with a little charisma who did nothing but scout these pics so somebody on that dais knew who these people were. That's just shamefully second rate and both the NBA and ESPN ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Not much ESPN can do about that

[sp6r=underrated]

Old Man Shouting at Clouds Rant

Why do fans watch the draft? Most NBA fans do not follow college ball and the vast majority do not follow European leagues. We have no idea who these players are.

Exactly so I would want a sports network to inform us on the players and their games in depth. but nah ESPN focuses on other things.

We all know what ESPN is at this point and even if ESPN actually tried to provide the info you wanted you can that info much better from written sources than tv.

[sp6r=underrated]

I have many issues with how ESPN does the NFL draft and Mel Kiper as a whole, but at the very least if you watch that he can come on for a pick in the 7th round and give you a basic rundown of who the guy is and what he does well

I love the NBA far more than NFL but the NFL is way more professional. The leagues have the ability to influence coverage and the NBA just doesn't care about this stuff. The NFL does and it is reflected in the coverage. The NBA basically markets itself around superstars, the Lakers and to a much lesser degree the knicks. If you're not one of those three, the only way you get coverage is if you're a no question ATG or title contender. Otherwise you get ignored.

I'll give an example of a bias that worked in favor of my team. I'm a knicks fan. The G7 pre-game show was basically a pep rally for the Knicks. The NFL does allow its partners to cover the more high-profile teams more but you would never see that on an NFL broadcast. They would devote some coverage to the the team with less fans. And when the game turned into a blowout, the halftime would focus on the winning team.

[JDR720]

The biggest issue is the ESPN pundits literally don't know anything about any team outside the Lakers and a few other big market teams. They don't talk about other things because they don't know anything to talk about.

Whereas the NFL people do a lot of research and will talk about any team when they're on the clock.

[dakomish23]

The podcast livestream with Windhorst, Pelton, Smith & McClure was a 1000x better. I just listened to some of it to see their reaction to some of the deals.

Spoiler:

[Teen Girl Squad]

Draft coverage breaks the #1 rule of covering a live event, don't tell the audience what's going to happen and they have been for years.

It was super cringe having teams make draft picks and Woj going "Oh they're trading this pick to such and such" and then 45 minutes later the commish is like "We have a trade to announce!"

Especially for drafts. Thats the literal appeal and the build up to the announcement. The NFL got wise to it a few years ago and soft-banned tip picking but even this year they regressed pretty hard, including spoiling one of the biggest surprise picks we've ever seen. Unfortunately a lot of these guys in the media space (and especially in insiders) can't quit the online/meta discourse and playing petty status games (omg Shams got the pick/tweeted 0.6 seconds faster than Woj, generic talking head 'predicted' a pick that the producer fed them etc...) beats making the best product.

[BigGargamel]

I don't even watch the draft anymore. I keep Shams/Woj up on Twitter and follow a website or two who gives real actual analysis. I kinda miss the fun of a surprise pick, but I just avoid ESPN at all costs now. Their NBA coverage and knowledge is beyond pathetic.

[amcoolio]

Sam Vecenie's youtube live show was awesome. They did the draft as it came out as twitter and ignored the ESPN broadcast, and talked about every pick with team implications with ZERO commercials or breaks.

[ChettheJet]

If you go back 4, 8, all the way through his 22 drafts Jay Bilas puffs up every player and he is dead wrong 75% of the time.

What you know about that Jonathon Givoney is that he spends a lot of time on the road. And it's not working for him. He actually called the kid drafted #46 the best shooter in the draft. They put up what every team needs and 9 out of 10 say shooting. So how did they make 45 picks before this guy's best shooter in the draft gets picked? These announcers are bigger cheerleaders for all these kids than their parents could ever be

They make every pic out to be a game changer for every team and it's pure BS, 40 of the 58 picks won't even be in the rotation. I feel sorry for Bronny James, everybody over hypes his abilities and he's got virtually no playing experience, there's no way to even guess if he's coachable. He could not play and get voted to the all star team, I just hope he doesn't embarrass himself if he gets in games

[HotelVitale]

I mentioned this in another thread, but worth pointing out again.

ESPN spent three times as much airtime interviewing Kyle Filipowski (who wasn't even drafted that night) about his outfit than they did discussing the 6th overall selection in the draft. A foreign player who fans needed more info about, and a guy who fit the 'big night for France' theme they were pushing at that point.

That network utterly failed on both nights of the draft, though the second round was more pathetic. If Adam Silver can look at this and think it's fine he is an idiot. The league office needs to privately dress down ESPN for this crap. Compare it to the much better job the same network does for the NFL. The association split their draft over two nights to try to recreate some of the NFL's success and ESPN vomited out that miserable programming in response. At minimum the NBA needs solid assurances this **** show won't happen again if they insist on making it a two night event.

Not saying they couldn't up the level some but think you're barking up the wrong tree. You like almost all of us on these boards know more about the actual players and personalities in the NBA than 95% of other sports fans, if not more. ESPN isn't going for that demographic of fans, they're going for the dead middle of people who don't pay attention that much but like to have someone to root for and something to argue about.

Mainstream sports media is Stephen A Smith and Kendrick Perkins and Skip Bayless, that's the level of actual basketball info the average sports consumer wants. I.e. negative info, they want the facts of any game to be distorted so it can be an entertaining argument to fill up 3-4 minutes at a time. The average fan who's sitting around at his uncle's place or at his frat house or whatever does think it's a lot more entertaining to argue about Filipowski's suit than to watch a few minutes of Sarr's or Saluan's tape and have some subtle take on why they might and might not succeed. I grew up with all these fans and I'm still around them a lot.

There are lots of other options and ESPN is fine with letting those peel off some of the higher-info fans. That's what we're supposed to be doing.

[HotelVitale]

If you go back 4, 8, all the way through his 22 drafts Jay Bilas puffs up every player and he is dead wrong 75% of the time.

What you know about that Jonathon Givoney is that he spends a lot of time on the road. And it's not working for him. He actually called the kid drafted #46 the best shooter in the draft. They put up what every team needs and 9 out of 10 say shooting. So how did they make 45 picks before this guy's best shooter in the draft gets picked? These announcers are bigger cheerleaders for all these kids than their parents could ever be

They make every pic out to be a game changer for every team and it's pure BS, 40 of the 58 picks won't even be in the rotation. I feel sorry for Bronny James, everybody over hypes his abilities and he's got virtually no playing experience, there's no way to even guess if he's coachable. He could not play and get voted to the all star team, I just hope he doesn't embarrass himself if he gets in games

This is dead accurate, and it's absolutely been happening for 20+ years now too. Nothing new to this, it's how you make it exciting for the average viewer.