Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
CJ Fogler: Doris Burke with some kind words for @Mark Jones who is calling his last game for ESPN tonight
Doris Burke with some kind words for @markjonesespn.bsky.social who is calling his last game for ESPN tonight
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T22:18:53.949Z
Barry Jackson: One of Jones' friends and longtime colleagues, the classy Doris Burke, will do Jones' final game with him. Mark said he'll talk about his thinking and plans in the days ahead. (ESPN does good work doing final game tributes to announcers; the Hubie finale on Super Bowl Sunday 2025 was elegant and exceptional.)
NBACentral: Draymond calls out Doris Burke ?? (h/t @warriorsworld )
Draymond calls out Doris Burke 😳
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) February 13, 2026
(h/t @warriorsworld ) pic.twitter.com/MMe3R5zHck
ESPN president of content Burke Magnus appeared on the Sports Media with Richard Dietsch podcast this week and was asked about why demoting Burke and replacing her with Legler was the right decision. “I think it was the right decision because we were still searching for the perfect combination,” said Magnus. “Again, we’re talking about an A-plus-plus human being in Doris Burke here… There was no coincidence that we extended her at the same time we were putting her with a new partner. “And we honestly believe that now with a little experience in the top team in a three-person arrangement, that the best manifestation of Doris’ work is actually alone with a play-by-play person. We have in our new arrangement, as was the case with the last one, a schedule of plenty of high-profile NBA games to go around. And so she’ll be calling big games, meaningful games in her new circumstance relative to the top team, which will be Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson, and Tim Legler.
The Athletic: UPDATE: Doris Burke has signed a multi-year extension with ESPN, the network announced. She will be on ESPN's No. 2 NBA broadcast team with play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch.
Advertisement
ABC/ESPN has demoted Hall of Fame broadcaster Doris Burke from its NBA Finals team and promoted network commentator Tim Legler to its No. 1 team, sources briefed on the decision told The Athletic on Thursday. Legler will pair with longtime lead play-by-player Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson for the network’s finals broadcasts. Jefferson recently agreed to a new contract with ESPN after working his first finals in June. Burke was on the finals team for two years, becoming the first woman in history to serve as an analyst for one of the traditional four major North American sports leagues championships (NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL).
Richard Jefferson has an agreement in place to return to ABC/ESPN, where he is expected to continue on NBA Finals broadcasts with Mike Breen, while Doris Burke’s spot on the network’s top team remains in question, sources briefed on the discussions said. Jefferson, 45, was elevated to the No. 1 team last season after previously being on the network’s No. 2 team. The official contract is not yet signed. ESPN declined to comment on Jefferson’s agreement.
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.”
Advertisement
“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.
“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.'”