There has been a lot of discontent with how the basketball media has talked about the NBA this season. And for good reason. It is completely broken.
Old players complaining about today’s stars, personal feuds taking center stage, and endless debates about GOATs and comparing eras that completely ignore what is actually happening this season.
But the fundamentals of what is broken with today’s NBA coverage have never been more prevalent than this week that shows a simple truth—sports media has no idea how to actually cover the NBA as a professional sport.
On Tuesday night, two all-time greats in Steph Curry and Nikola Jokić turned in two epic performances. Curry scored 52 points with 10 rebounds and 8 assists to lead the Golden State Warriors in a clutch road victory against the Memphis Grizzlies. Not to be outdone, Nikola Jokić put forth a historic, never-before-seen statline of 61/10/10 in a double overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Here’s how the NBA’s leading television partners talked about those two players and performances this week.
Constant hater of everything in today’s NBA, Shaquille O’Neal, said before the game that he was better than Jokić in his prime and that he would turn the two-time MVP into “Slavian chicken or wherever he’s from.” The fact that Jokić put up a 60-point triple-double immediately after the best big man of the previous era couldn’t even say what country he is from is some incredible timing that shouldn’t get lost on anybody.
2001 Shaq vs 2025 Jokić 🍿
Big Fella thinks it’s Serbian BBQ chicken 💀 pic.twitter.com/OJAVA45JI8
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 1, 2025
Over at First Take, Jokić’s performance did get some shine, but only in the context of blaming Russell Westbrook for the loss. The program followed it on Thursday with a forced debate about Jokić’s place in the Top 20 NBA players of all-time with guest analyst Marcus Morris, who said no (unsurprisingly given the history between the Nuggets’ big man and twin brother Markieff Morris). The program then went through a ten-minute debate all about this arbitrary ranking with a player who isn’t even finished with his NBA career.
The same thing happened with Curry. After his 50-point performance, we had to sit through Stephen A. Smith offering a ridiculous take from an anonymous former “Hall of Famer” who said the Warriors’ sharpshooter would not have succeeded back in that person’s day because he would have gotten roughed up. TNT’s Adam Lefkoe called out First Take for the Curry debate, but where’s that same energy for what Shaq said about Joker? Predictably, this segment went viral as supporters and detractors of today’s game were able to step back into the trenches for the millionth time this season.
“I had a Hall of Famer come up to me and said to me, ‘Steph Curry would not have averaged more than 17 points a game. … In our era, we would’ve hurt him.’”😳 @stephenasmith on Draymond Green’s recent comments about comparing NBA eras 👀 pic.twitter.com/PxnstCSHR5
— First Take (@FirstTake) April 2, 2025
The follow-up conversation on Steph Curry with Marcus Morris on Thursday was another manufactured debate about where Curry ranked as the “most feared” player in the NBA, which turned into Morris stumping for his former teammate Kawhi Leonard as the true “most feared” player.
What does this even mean?!? “Most feared?” Nobody knows! But at least it’s something to argue about. Anything to avoid analyzing actual basketball games that take place every night!
Marcus Morris Sr. picks Kawhi Leonard over Steph Curry as the most feared player in the NBA 👀 @stephenasmith wasn’t having it 😯 pic.twitter.com/Rt3Z9DdQjQ
— First Take (@FirstTake) April 3, 2025
With the NBA regular season winding down to its final weeks, ask yourselves what have been the most popular media storylines in the 2024-2025 campaign. Has it been the historic dominance of the Oklahoma City Thunder? Is it the stunning brilliance of the Cleveland Cavaliers putting it all together under Kenny Atkinson? The remarkable comeback of the Detroit Pistons? What about the renaissance of the Lakers and Warriors or the Celtics looking for back-to-back titles?
Of course not.
Instead, the basketball media is obsessed with real or made-up drama. It can seemingly only talk about things that happen outside the 94×50 feet. We’ve got all the time in the world to do exhausting GOAT debates, hypothetical trade talk, LeBron vs Stephen A., Bronny James, and fighting about why yesterday’s NBA was so much better than today’s NBA. But we don’t have time to discuss today’s great players or matchups. Bob Cousy, who was last an All-Star in 1963, has probably received more First Take mentions over the past year than 2025 All-Star Jalen Williams. It’s not hard to see what is wrong with this picture.
If the same coverage was applied to the NFL, we would all consider it to be truly insane.
Imagine it for a moment, if you will. The Ravens beat the Steelers on Monday Night Football, and ESPN spends the next day talking about whether or not Lamar Jackson is a Top 15 quarterback of all time. Saquon Barkley has 200 rushing yards for the Eagles, and yet all we hear is a quote from Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders about how he couldn’t survive running the ball in the 1990s. Chuck Bednarik is resurrected from the grave and put on ESPN every week to talk about how soft today’s players are because they don’t play both ways and try to rip people’s heads off with clotheslines. Every week, everyone complains because nobody is immediately worthy of becoming the next Tom Brady.
Do you realize how completely bonkers this sounds? How tired and unsatisfied NFL fans would be? How would we yearn for literally anything else? Welcome to the everyday existence of an NBA fan. As Molly Qerim said on First Take during one of these segments, we don’t talk about any other sport this way. And with good reason!
“[LeBron hates] the fact that people can point to a previous era and talk about what you’re not.” 😳 @stephenasmith calls LeBron James’ comments about Giannis scoring 250 points a game in the 70s “disrespectful.” 👀 pic.twitter.com/thkySaX8TG
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 26, 2025
How did we get to this place? Part of it may have to do with the changes in media itself. We know how much the games matter in the NFL because there are only 17 of them during a regular season. With our short attention spans, it is much easier to focus on one game. There are games every night in the NBA, and most teams play 2-3 games a week. With the constant churn of the 24/7 news cycle and 82 games in a season, only genuinely unique or special games (think Luka Dončić’s first game with the Lakers) get the same attention as any NFL regular-season game would receive.
Each NFL matchup has the time and space to be deeply analyzed. With each team only playing one game a week and so many of them now nationally televised, we have much better knowledge of star players and teams than we used to. Everyone knows about the Eagles and the tush push. Can anyone beyond LeBron James and Mind the Game listeners name one offensive set in today’s NBA?
And on top of that, it takes a ton of work and investment to watch 30 teams play 82 regular-season games. Today’s media world moves much too fast for such a long season. Consider the plight of Major League Baseball trying to break into ESPN’s daily conversation.
Then there is the gossip factor. Ever since The Decision, the NBA media partners have leaned into the drama of player movement as the main storyline in the league. The focus isn’t so much on which team will win the NBA Finals as on which teams will make the big moves for star players. How much time have we wasted over the years listening to Stephen A. Smith pontificate on all of the superstars who actually never played for the New York Knicks?
Finally, it’s just easier for the likes of Stephen A. Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal to coast on their name brands and personalities. They know just as much as anyone that the NBA is a personality-driven league, and they are as big of a personality as any player.
Sure, Shaq could break down why Cade Cunningham is the frontrunner for MVP, but if his bosses at TNT Sports let him get away with admitting he doesn’t watch the Pistons, why would he change now?
Sure, Stephen A. Smith could tell us how Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is such a unique talent, but if his bosses at ESPN let him take over First Take with endless monologues aimed at his personal feud with LeBron James, why would he change now?
On Thursday morning’s edition of Get Up, host Mike Greenberg had an uncharacteristic monologue about the Oklahoma City Thunder putting up one of the best seasons in NBA history. And in many ways, it felt like a mea culpa for ignoring the team all season because they didn’t fit in with a LeBron-MJ debate, and ESPN hadn’t gotten to ranking where SGA lands in the Top 27 point guards of all-time. It also felt like a message from ESPN saying, “If this team is actually going to be in the NBA Finals this year, maybe we should talk about them so our own ratings don’t tank in June because nobody knows who they are.”
But if the sports world doesn’t know anything about today’s NBA, ESPN and the league’s other media partners have nobody else to blame but themselves.
