My plan Thursday
night was to watch the first round of the NBA Draft.
That plan
evaporated before Andrew Wiggins had even been announced as the top pick. On
Twitter, Adrian Wojnarowski had already revealed the
first two picks. If I were to keep watching, it would be due to the quality
of the ESPN coverage.
ESPN is usually
very, very good at covering live events. We have seen from their coverage
of the World Cup that they can bring their A-game when necessary. You would
think the NBA Draft would warrant a similar commitment to excellence.
Instead, ESPN
produced a disaster.
The biggest problem
with the coverage is ESPN tries to super-impose its NFL Draft coverage onto the
NBA, despite the fact they are two completely different animals
Look, I may hate
the NFL Draft as much as anyone but that hate is focused more on the
endless buildup. The actual NFL Draft on ESPN is a pretty entertaining affair.
Sure, I could do without Chris Berman, but ESPN employs their best talent
focused on doing what they do best. As Johnny Football plummeted on draft
night, I could have followed along just on Twitter but ESPN did an excellent
job keeping me informed of what was going on.
During the NBA
Draft, Twitter wasn’t just ahead of ESPN – the reporters on Twitter were in a
different stratosphere. It was like there was a real event going on in social
media and there was a television production going on in Brooklyn and the two
didn’t match up.
For next year,
ESPN needs to do a lot differently. Namely, it needs to do everything
differently.
Forget the “suspense” angle
There is true
suspense in the top part of the NFL Draft because teams have so many different
needs. There are 22 starters on an NFL team – there are 5 on an NBA team. There
are a lot more players in the NFL Draft, which means there are far more ways a
team can draft in.
In the NBA, there
is not. The ESPN announcers spent so much time endlessly speculating about
draft picks and they were almost always wrong, particularly Jalen Rose and Bill
Simmons. The draft coverage
in the Twitter age needs to look back, instead of forward. Why was it a
good pick? What should they have done?
Jalen Rose and
Bill Simmons had no clue Thursday night. This is not entirely their fault – the
NBA season just ended two weeks ago. These are two guys paid to watch the NBA
all year. It is insane to think they would provide enough insight from
basically taking a two-week crash course on the college game and prospects. It
made them look silly and inferior to Jay Bilas, who has been watching these
guys for six months.
If you look at
the NFL, there is a crazy amount of time between the Super Bowl and the NFL
Draft, so a guy like Jon Gruden can immerse himself in
game film and provide expert analysis. Simmons and Rose – really, any NBA
guy – simply cannot.
This is not to
say Rose and Simmons don’t have a place in the telecast but they would be
better served in the corner, getting maybe 5 minutes to recap what has happened
and give their two cents.
Where are the coaches?
During the NFL
coverage, ESPN interviewed Nick Saban and had Jon Gruden on set all night. A
draft is begging for insight from a coach. On Thursday night, ESPN employed
zero coaches.
Where was the
current college coach? Where was Doug Collins? It was a gaping hole in the
coverage because a coach would have been able to give great insight into a
player’s strengths and why they fit into a particular system. Is it any wonder
that Fran Fraschilla, a former college coach, was the
star of the night with his European player recaps?
The “Front Office” segments were awful
After Shabazz
Napier was drafted, ESPN cut to their “front office guru” Tom Penn, who kindly
explained that the Miami Heat won’t have cap room if Bosh, Wade and LeBron
opt-in. Anyone with a sliver of NBA knowledge – or someone who has watched ESPN
for three seconds in the past two weeks – knows this. What is the point of that
segment?
There are so many
fascinating aspects to the NBA draft from a front office point of view – from trading
picks to salary cap maneuvers to stashing picks – that ESPN missed a huge
opportunity to exploit this for the basketball aficionados who are tuning in.
Why was Jay Williams interviewing people?
I like Jay
Williams as a game commentator. I really like Jay Williams as a studio analyst.
I loathe Jay Williams as an interviewer.
I don’t think I’ve
seen Jay Williams interview one person all year and on one of the NBA’s biggest
nights, ESPN has him conducting interviews with draftees? I understand we don’t
need Barbara Walters there, but ESPN has a literal army of folks – Doris Burke,
anyone? – employed to interview people.
The worst part of
this is that Jay Williams is really, really good at breaking down and
evaluating talent. In draft parlance, it’s like drafting a stretch 4 and
keeping him in the paint. Let the man play to his strength!
What I would do:
- The four main analysts: Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, Jay Williams & Doug Collins
- Interviewers: Doris Burke and Andy Katz
- Keep Jalen Rose & Bill Simmons to the side.
- Maybe they do something for Grantland.com during the Draft and they show up on ESPN once or twice an hour
- Eliminate the useless Front Office segments
- More Fran Fraschilla!
- Acknowledge trades in real-time, do not ignore Twitter
- More analysis from smart NBA guys, like Tim Legler, during the draft. He was very good on SportsCenter, non-existent during the draft.
- No Chris Broussard ever
- Way more insight on what teams are thinking. Ed Werder is embedded with the Cowboys every draft and did an excellent job monitoring the Johnny Football saga. Everyone knew the Heat wanted Shabazz Napier, why wasn’t that addressed once until it happened?
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