The conference finals of this year’s NBA playoffs are set. The Oklahoma City Thunder will take on the Minnesota Timberwolves in the West, while the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers meet again to do battle in the East. And ESPN will be adding a big-name contributor to help preside over it all.
On Monday the network announced former Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone would be joining the coverage team for the conference finals. Malone was fired just over a month ago, with three games remaining in the 2024–25 NBA regular season; his former players in Denver were eliminated by the Thunder on Sunday.
Per the network’s announcement, Malone will appear on NBA Countdown during pregame and halftime for ESPN’s coverage of the Thunder-Timberwolves series. He’ll appear alongside the usual playoff crew of Malika Andrews, Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins, Bob Myers and Shams Charania.
This will serve as Malone’s first foray into television. He’s been roaming the NBA sidelines as a head coach for over a decade now and his coaching career dates back to his first gig as an assistant at Oakland University in 1994. He knows the game as well as anyone; the question will be whether he can demonstrate as much to an audience of millions.
The longtime Nuggets coach and NBA champion has a fiery reputation. Should that trait carry over in front of the camera Malone should provide plenty of entertainment no matter what.
