The top ESPN NBA broadcast team will change for the second straight year with JJ Redick departing the booth to become head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. That leaves Mike Breen and Doris Burke as a two-person team for now, and it’s not abundantly clear whether they will fill that third seat immediately or not.
Redick stepped in midseason for Doc Rivers, who returned to broadcasting after being fired by the Sixers, only to return to coaching in January after the Bucks fired Adrian Griffin. Rivers and Burke had replaced longtime analysts Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, who spent 15 years next to Breen. Jackson and Van Gundy were polarizing to fans, but they were beloved by Breen, who recently joined Jackson on The Mark Jackson Show and talked at the 26:10 mark about how “honored” he was to have shared the booth with those two.
“We had a friendship, the three of us, before we ever called games together,” Breen said. “So then all of a sudden, not only are you around these people that you love as brothers and you have such respect and admiration, and now all of a sudden you’re calling the biggest games in basketball with them, year in and year out. It just, for me, it was such an honor. And Blu, I’ll say this to you cause he gets embarrassed when I say this stuff, and I made this statement in the Hall of Fame when I was blessed to get the Gowdy award. I said, the reason that I got that award was because of our work together. It’s not a singular award, it’s our work together. We were a team. Just like playing basketball is a team sport, broadcasting basketball is a team sport. And that’s why I was up there on that stage that night, because of our work together as a team.”
Breen noted before the season that he was “shocked” by ESPN’s decision to change course with its lead broadcast team, and while he and Burke have worked together for a long time, both with her on sidelines and in an analyst role, it was clear the addition of Rivers and then Redick would need time to build some chemistry on the call. Neither of them were willing to give it time, bolting (understandably) for high profile coaching jobs, and now ESPN has to figure out what to do next.