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Bill Simmons Breaks Down ESPN’s Sad State of NBA Coverage After Zach Lowe Layoff

Stephen Douglas

Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe on a recent podcast.
Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe on a recent podcast. /

What is ESPN's plan for NBA coverage? That's the question many people have been left asking in the wake of the news that Zach Lowe has been laid off by the sports network right before the season begins. Both fans and media were shocked and bothered by the decision.

Among those people are Bill Simmons and Bryan Curtis. Simmons and Curtis both worked with Lowe under the Grantland banner at ESPN. Both clearly have personal relationships with Lowe, but basically share the public sentiment that this was a bad call by ESPN. (Lowe just appeared on Simmons' podcast last week.)

Early in the discussion Simmons did an incredibly effective job summarizing what a mess ESPN's basketball coverage has become over the last year.

"Just NBA in general in the last year. They lose Doc. They lose JJ," Simmons explained. "They lose their lead color analyst twice after firing Van Gundy, right? Woj is just gone. Now Zach Lowe's gone. It's kind of... your brain's spinning. And now I guess what we're going to get, and I like Stephen A. So this is not a slight at Stephen A. and I really think he's a good guy, but it feels like they're moving towards, it's a Knicks playoff game and here's Stephen A.'s entrance. And that's kind of what they think people want and I don't think they're right.

Keep in mind this is not something Simmons is exaggerating for comedic effect. In fact, this is exactly what happened during the 2024 NBA postseason coverage. It got so bad that Mad Dog Russo again called out ESPN for their over-the-top coverage of one of their own personalities.

As Simmons and Curtis agree, whatever Lowe does is not part of ESPN's plan going forward. Instead they're looking at characters like Kendrick Perkins who do a better job of creating 90-second viral clips.

At least they didn't show him arriving on set.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a Senior Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in journalism and media since 2008, and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Stephen spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and has previously written for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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