Sparks’ Lexie Brown answers the call to cover own team: ‘She was really that good’

The Los Angeles Sparks will be without Lexie Brown for the foreseeable future. The 29-year-old guard out of Maryland and Duke spent the entirety of the 2023 season battling previously untreated and undiagnosed Crohn’s disease. She continues to be out indefinitely amidst her battle, so it was a surprise when she subbed into Wednesday’s game.

But not in the way that you might think.

In a pinch, Brown subbed in as a color commentator for the regional broadcast of the Sparks’ game against the Minnesota Lynx on Spectrum Sports Tuesday. While the Sparks fell 82-67 at the hands of Lynx, despite the absence of leading scorer Napheesa Collier, Brown stepped up when a team — the broadcast team — needed her the most.

“It was kind of crazy,” Brown said after the game, via Dhani Joseph of Yahoo Sports. “Those are still my teammates, so, like, you cannot really be super critical of them. There are plays that are made that you can like, react to, and stuff like that.

“But I was trying to just be as uplifting as possible. I see all the work they put in. You know, I’m in the locker room, I’m in these huddles, and I’m with them every day. So I just want to be able to paint them in a positive light and show our fans that it’s going to be a process and it’s going to be hard at times they are really doing the best that they can.”

Initially hesitant, Brown was approached to fill an emergency commentator spot on the broadcast. Worrying about potential bias towards her own team, she eventually agreed, already formulating her approach for when she hit the airwaves.

You would have never known that this was her first time doing so. Brown delivered her commentary with the poise and insight of a seasoned analyst, keeping the broadcast engaging and informative.

And while this severed as her broadcast debut, Brown isn’t entirely new to the space. She’s previously appeared as an in-studio analyst for the ACC Network and even graced podcasts like former NBA player Gilbert Arenas’ Gil’s Arena.

Brown’s background likely contributed to her natural on-air presence despite the unexpected circumstances.

“That was a very one-sided telecast on my part, and I think that should be expected from a player,” Brown said. “But it’s on the Sparks’ network. Like, if it’s on ESPN or CBS or something like that, obviously, you have to be a little bit more unbiased. But I was like, ‘This is the perfect time for me to just show my girls some love.'”

“I told her on the broadcast, it’d be the equivalent to her scoring a 40 piece in her debut,” Sparks play-by-play voice Rahshaun Haylock told Yahoo Sports. “She was really that good.”

[Yahoo]