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While complaints have grown not just about Doris Burke but the whole group, Richard Jefferson made his position clear. “Doris, I always call her the godmother of basketball, because she has had to deal with so much bullsh*t for the past 30 years in this industry,” Jefferson told Jimmy Traina on the SI Media Podcast. “She’s one of the best. And so those are the people you’re excited to be teammates with, because they make you better, you make them better. And I think our chemistry is only going to continue to grow.”
Carlisle opened his news conference before Game 1 of the finals by responding to reporting by The Athletic that Burke’s “spot” on ESPN’s main broadcast team was not guaranteed, and that network executives were trying to determine whether she was better suited for a two-person broadcast crew or the three-person team the network prefers for its marquee playoff and finals games. “It was so sad to see these reports leaked really unnecessarily before such a celebrated event,” Carlisle said. “Doris is a great example of putting herself out there.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with all that stuff, but I just want to say thank you to Doris for the example that she has put forth for young women like my daughter and all these people who are changing the game,” Carlisle said. “She has changed the game, and that’s the reason that she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame a couple years ago. So I just wanna say that in support of her.”
Ramona Shelburne: Rick Carlisle with an impassioned opening to his press conference here at the NBA Finals, talking about Doris Burke. “She has changed the game. I just want to say that in support of her.” He then went on to name other female broadcasters in the NBA he admires that Doris has paved the way for.
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“One of the storylines in the Western Conference Finals, in Game 1 in particular, Minnesota had some frustration about the number of free throws that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took,” Doris Burke said. “And NBA Twitter goes crazy for certain guys who they call ‘free throw merchants,’ etc. The situation this year reminds me a little of Dwyane Wade in the 2006 Finals against Dallas, where people were incensed at the number of free throws.”
Doris Burke: “So we talked about the storyline, ‘free throw merchant,’ and we did that because in Minnesota, 19,000 fans were chanting ‘free throw merchant.’ We know the viewer at home can hear that. And if they can’t hear it, they are wondering what’s being chanted. And so we felt going in as a broadcast team, ‘this is a storyline. If it plays out where there’s a number of free throws happening, it’s something we need to discuss.'”
ESPN executives will debate what is next, according to sources, with one discussion likely centering around if they feel Burke is better on a two-person team as opposed to the three-person team. ESPN’s other NBA game analysts this season were Tim Legler, Jay Bilas and Cory Alexander. This new team puts Breen in the middle of trying to find the magic that he had with Van Gundy and Jackson. Breen is one of the best NBA play-by-players ever and has called the most Finals on TV, but there has been a hole in his game for two seasons.
Burke is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, rightfully so. She was handed nothing, coming from obscurity, first working New York Liberty games on MSG Network before her rise through the ESPN ranks. She was sharp and informative. But in the three-person booth the last two years, she hasn’t seemed to mesh as well with Breen. He doesn’t outright ignore what she says, but they rarely build on each other’s comments. ESPN has failed to create a deep game analyst bench, even resorting to college basketball expert Bilas on playoff games this season. Some top decision-makers like Legler a lot, and he could become a Finals option, according to sources briefed on the network decision-makers’ thinking.
Van Gundy, 65, joins Ian Eagle on Prime Video’s game telecasts. While Prime has designated Eagle as its No. 1 play-by-play announcer, it plans on waiting to name its top game analysts. It has shown interest in Richard Jefferson, who was just promoted to ESPN’s No. 1 crew with Mike Breen and Doris Burke. Jefferson’s contract expires after he calls the NBA Finals for ABC in June.
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According to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, ESPN and ABC will use Richard Jefferson alongside Mike Breen and Doris Burke during marquee national TV games the rest of the season. However, the network has yet to commit to Jefferson calling the NBA Finals.
“The rest of the season … when they have three-person teams, the only three-person team they have the rest of the regular season is Mike Brain, Doris Burke, and Richard Jefferson,” Marchand reported on his podcast this week. “That would make you think, OK, that must be the Finals team. Not so fast … but it doesn’t make much sense that you go with any other trio that’s at least on your roster right now, if you’re not going to have them do any more games.”
“Doris Burke will not be with us tonight,” Breen began. “Doris is not feeling well. And I think it’s important to state that her absence has nothing to do with the amount of money she lost on the blackjack tables in recent days. The authorities need to know that.” The deadpan delivery clearly stunned Jefferson, who could barely contain himself and struggled to gather his thoughts. “I, uh, yeah. I don’t think it has anything to do with that, Mike,” Jefferson said.
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