Rachel Nichols blames NBA for making All-Star game an ‘afterthought’
The longtime NBA insider believes the league is prioritizing sponsors and corporate partners over fans during its All-Star weekend, harming the quality of the game.
The longtime NBA insider believes the league is prioritizing sponsors and corporate partners over fans during its All-Star weekend, harming the quality of the game.
"I think that people are looking at him as if he's a top-10 pick."
"Saying it is a little bit of an interesting situation because he didn’t realize at the time that he was being simulcast on radio and TV."
"And it should never happen again."
"If Jeanie had to do it over again, she would probably do it differently."
"When you're in that ESPN world, there is a lot of sort of Stockholm syndrome of, this is the only thing that matters."
Showtime Basketball is expected to shut down at the end of the year, but a transition to CBS could be in the works.
"All the respect for building such a powerful entity on a name and doing it well. So yeah, people are going to listen."
"This is a reality show! This isn’t 60 Minutes, it’s not journalism."
Undisputed has some more notable figures coming in.
"Money for NBA teams, the Orlando Magic's money that they donated to Ron DeSantis, doesn't come from a magic tree elf. It comes from the work of players on the court."
"Not only does he have a personal history, but more importantly...the team has a history that they’re battling with here."
“I think it’s an awesome opportunity for her to come home, in a sense...I want our network to have a national look and feel, and I think Rachel really plays into that theme.”
"They stressed it was my choice, they weren't telling me to do this, because it was in my contract. But they were putting a lot of pressure on me. I was being told 'Well, you're not a team player.'"
Nichols' show was canceled in August. She's now reached a settlement with ESPN over the time that was left on her contract.
"We respect and acknowledge there are a variety of feelings about what happened and the actions we took. The details of what took place last year are confidential, nuanced and complicated personnel matters."
"There has not been one Black person that I can think of right now that has not gone through hell at ESPN."
Nichols served as the sideline reporter for this broadcast team during last year's Finals and this year's Western Conference Finals, as well as for most regular-season broadcasts they did this season (including their Christmas Day game).
Implicitly or explicitly saying someone got a job because of their skin color is obviously wrong, but also harmful.
This certainly doesn't feel like the end of the conversation.
"I woke up to HUNDREDS of Tweets YELLING AT ME and I had no idea what was happening!"
On the first day of this year's playoffs, the NBA Countdown cast discussed not appearing on that show over restrictions on reporter interviews that were seen to promote Rachel Nichols, the latest fallout from Nichols' 2020 call where she offered criticisms of Maria Taylor.
"You went on Kevin Durant's podcast, and you were saying these things. So we in the media are not creating the clickbait. You and Kevin Durant are creating the clickbait."