On the Doc Rivers Exit From ESPN

Should ESPN/ABC have no former NBA player or coach on its main broadcast?

So this was yet another amusing adventure in ESPN awkwardly handling the week’s biggest NBA story.

I don’t subscribe to Jason’s theory about why ESPN got caught flat footed when their pricey new broadcast hire suddenly fled back to to the NBA, but I find it pretty funny. If it’s not technically true, it’s at least spiritually true. ESPN got snowed by Doc, the charmer. Do I think Doc lied to Woj? No, but even then Jason’s take would be close to a general truth: Rivers certainly head faked Woj’s company into a lurch at a sensitive TV rights negotiation time.

Or as Michael Kay summarized on his ESPN New York radio show:

I love this company, they’ve been really good to me for 22 years. They have egg on their face with the Doc Rivers situation. They just do.