During Wednesday night’s Ohio State-North Carolina college basketball game on ESPN, a promo graphic was shown for two games scheduled for ESPN’s NBA Friday: the Denver Nuggets vs the Boston Celtics, and the Los Angeles Lakers vs the Portland Trail Blazers.
However, the logos on the graphic are definitely not the logos of the Nuggets, Celtics, Lakers, and Trail Blazers.
The logo shown for the Nuggets is actually the logo for the New Orleans Pelicans. The logo shown for the Celtics is actually the logo for the Houston Rockets. The logo shown for the Lakers is actually the logo for the Dallas Mavericks. And the logo shown for the Trail Blazers is actually the logo for the Phoenix Suns.
Here’s how it looked on the broadcast (h/t: @Bill_Fenbers):
So, that graphic was up for 20 seconds, and play-by-play man Dan Shulman and color commentator Jay Bilas said nothing about the very obvious error on the screen. Now, Shulman was focused on reading the promo correctly, and Bilas was probably paying attention to the game getting started back up out of the commercial break. Or maybe they just didn’t want to throw anybody under the bus and draw more attention to the gaffe. That’s all understandable.
But being that far off with the graphic is bizarre. The Mavericks and Suns did play against each other last Friday, but that game wasn’t televised on ESPN, and they have no scheduled ESPN head-to-head game for the rest of the season. There’s also no sign of a Pelicans-Rockets game on the ESPN schedule. So it’s not like somebody just forgot to change the logos of a recently scheduled game or got weeks mixed up.
Anyway, you can catch Nuggets-Celtics (8 PM ET) and Lakers-Trail Blazers (10:30 PM ET) — *not* Pelicans-Rockets and Mavericks-Suns — Friday on ESPN.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.