The Portland Trail Blazers were beaten so badly that an in-game weather report was the most exciting part of the broadcast.
There may be no better sign of ‘we have nothing interesting to talk about’ than someone asking about the weather. And that was on full display Thursday night on Root Sports Northwest in Portland, as the Blazers were getting blown out by the Oklahoma City Thunder in historic fashion.
With Portland losing to Oklahoma City 123-65 in the fourth quarter, Trail Blazers announcers Kevin Calabro and Lamar Hurd went to the broadcast’s studio show early. But not for game analysis. They went to studio hosts Antonio Harvey and Jamie Hudson for a weather report.
Stick to sports and talk about the Blazers trailing by nearly 60 points? Or ditch the game to discuss the looming snowstorm? The Portland broadcast aptly chose the latter.
With the Blazers down 60, the broadcast opted to go split screen with a weather report last night pic.twitter.com/L3VchMPcCV
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 12, 2024
“First off, I do want to clarify, not certified as a meteorologist,” Hudson said after the broadcast went split screen to get a weather report from the Portland Trail Blazers pre and postgame show hosts. “I’m a weather anchor, but I’ve been trained for this for the last year.”
In addition to being a studio host for the Trail Blazers, Hudson doubles as a sports and weather anchor for Portland’s CBS affiliate KOIN News, so getting her take on the area’s looming winter storm wasn’t totally strange. It was just strange to see it happen for nearly five minutes during an NBA broadcast.
Honestly though, if you’re a Blazers fan who finally reached your breaking point at 123-65, are you still changing the channel as a weather report breaks into the broadcast? Or are you putting the remote back down and waiting to hear the forecast?
Not only did Hudson give a forecast, but it has a pretty good chance of being right. Hudson said weather models were forecasting snow totals between two and 14 inches, a range not quite as large as that of the Blazers-Thunder final score.
