Damian Lillard put up 39 points along with some clutch magic in his Milwaukee Bucks debut. There was plenty of legitimate hype to place on his veteran shoulders. But rather than pull a clip of Lillard’s numerous interviews since being traded to Milwaukee or just pure highlight footage, ESPN’s social media team got to cooking on Thursday night.
The result was a 6-second video that garnered 2.2 million views by Friday afternoon when NBA fans began to realize something was off.
DAME DIDN'T COME TO MILWAUKEE TO WASTE HIS TIME 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/vw6Coa6JG0
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 27, 2023
The clip was not from his Bucks debut, despite the digitally altered Bucks jersey he is wearing in it. It was from a postgame interview he did with TNT back in 2020 during the NBA Bubble restart in Orlando.
Editing the Bucks jersey atop the original Portland jersey Lillard wore during that interview wasn’t the only change. ESPN also edited its own logo onto the TNT icon originally on the microphone.
The interviewer from the broadcast was Chris Haynes, a known comrade of Lillard’s who never did sideline reporting for ESPN. Haynes left the worldwide leader in 2018.
Adding to this – ESPN is attributing this now to themselves w/the ESPN flagged microphone when it was a TNT interview. This is not great stuff. pic.twitter.com/eGp1LzdDwo
— Danny Marang (@DannyMarang) October 27, 2023
NBA fans had a field day online trashing ESPN after Marang pointed out the post’s inaccuracies, with some noting that it felt like the kind of thing fake-quote aggregator Ballsack Sports might do.
The Ballsack Sports – ESPN rivalry intensifies. AI deepfake quotes is going to be hard to beat https://t.co/djU0MbUwXZ pic.twitter.com/ERYHPXWsM6
— Ballsack Sports (@BallsackSports) October 27, 2023
DAME DIDN'T COME TO MILWAUKEE* TO WASTE HIS TIME 🗣️
*the 2020 NBA Bubble, when this video was originally captured, before ESPN altered it to make it seem like he said this in 2023 https://t.co/p0MG823i9E
— Chuck Mockler (@ChuckMockler) October 27, 2023
If this passes ESPN editorial standards, their journalistic days are over. As @DannyMarang spotted, the clip is manipulated w/o disclosure. It's an interview Lillard did in 2020 with TNT while a Blazer. ESPN edited his jersey and the mic flag and added a logo to the floor. https://t.co/lLGEuIiSnB
— Dylan McLemore (@voiceofD) October 27, 2023
The most peculiar part of all this is what ESPN saw as the upside. There are so many nuggets of content already available from Lillard’s short time in Milwaukee. Why steal something and misrepresent it just to add an inconsequential tweet to the mix?
The most sensationalized responses about the future of journalism may be a bit extreme, but ESPN can’t expect people not to notice this stuff. Especially as AI and computer-generated content become more prevalent, media companies owe it to their audiences to be explicit and honest about what they are putting out.
UPDATE (October 28, 12:57 p.m. ET): In an update to this story, ESPN issued a statement to Awful Announcing clarifying the post.
An ESPN spokesperson said, “We occasionally look to connect sports moments of the past with contemporary imagery and storylines as part of our social content. While it was never our intention to misrepresent anything for fans, we completely recognize how this instance caused confusion.”
