There’s often been a lot of criticism of broadcasts for misidentifications. One of the most recent cases came Sunday afternoon. There, an ABC broadcast (produced by ESPN) of the Memphis Grizzlies-Oklahoma City Thunder Game 1 NBA playoff clash saw a significant discussion of an injury to Memphis forward Jaylen Wells. But that was followed with first one zoom, and then a repeated zoom, on a figure in the stands.
Given the conversation around that, viewers would likely assume the featured figure was Wells. And it was an inactive Grizzlies’ player. But it was his teammate, Zyon Pullin:
During a conversation on Grizzlies’ forward Jaylen Wells’ injury, ABC’s broadcast zoomed in on his teammate Zyon Pullin. pic.twitter.com/V6zF2jJ0dk
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 21, 2025
Wells himself reacted to a shorter clip of that later on Sunday on X:
— Jaylen Wells (@jaylen_wells) April 20, 2025
There’s often a lot of criticism for announcers around clips like this, and that was seen Sunday. However, from the public evidence to date, this particular mistake may be more about the camera operators and production team than the specific announcers.
Broadcasters Dave Pasch and Tim Legler at no point in that clip said “There’s Wells” or anything of the kind. Their discussion about Wells was just paired with that particular closeup, which a reasonable fan would infer to be of Wells. So it seems like that may be more on camera operators and truck figures.
At any rate, the end product here was not ideal. The broadcast and production team could have a defense of “Nothing here ever affirmatively claimed this was Wells.” But the presentation of that shot of Pullin, especially with the return to it, sure made it seem like that was video of who the announcers were talking about. That wasn’t the case, and that paved the way for reactions like the one Wells had.
