ESPN's NBA Draft coverage needs major changes

The unique nature of the 2024 NBA Draft put ESPN’s coverage of the event in the spotlight.

It would be fair to say that the Worldwide Leader didn’t meet the moment.

With so little known about so many of the draft’s top prospects, the onus was on the broadcast to educate its viewers on the players being selected. But whether it was the draft’s feed on ABC or ESPN, the Disney networks failed to do just that, with this year’s class — outside of Bronny James — seemingly leaving the draft just as enigmatic as it entered it.

Let’s start with the ABC feed, which featured host Kevin Negandhi and analysts Stephen A. Smith and Bob Myers. I actually enjoyed Myers’ insight as one of the most previously prominent general managers in the NBA, as well as his unique chemistry with Smith . But from a basketball perspective, there are only so many times you ask somebody a version of “what is team X thinking here?” And it also seemed clear that Smith and Myers — who are a week removed from covering the NBA Finals for NBA Countdown — weren’t as well versed on this year’s class as you’d expect from the analysts on ESPN’s primary broadcast.

But hey, at least Smith had another platform to display his Knicks fandom.

To be clear, Smith and (especially) Myers are assets to ESPN’s draft coverage, and Neghandi is a strong host. But the broadcast would have benefitted from the presence of somebody with stronger expertise regarding the players be picked, especially in a draft with so many unknown commodities.

The ESPN feed attempted to provide just that, with college basketball analyst Jay Bilas joining host Malika Andrews and fellow analysts Richard Jefferson and Andraya Carter. This broadcast was more balanced and basketball-focused, which was obviously by design. But despite Bilas and Carter each possessing backgrounds covering college basketball, the panel lacked a true authority on the players who were picked without any college experience (of which there were many).

As somebody who entered this year’s draft with minimal knowledge regarding this year’s class, I was also struck by the lack of player highlights on both broadcasts. Perhaps that’s because the class’ unique makeup didn’t lend itself to such clips being available in abundance. But in any event, it felt like the most film analysis we got was when ESPN’s panel broke down Jared McCain’s TikTok videos.

Criticism of the draft’s broadcast wasn’t limited to the on-screen analysis, as there were several inexcusable production mistakes. Most notably, the broadcast misidentified multiple top prospects throughout the night.

But if I had one primary criticism of ESPN’s NBA Draft coverage, it’s the lack of a Mel Kiper Jr.-like expert. Jonathan Givony is the closest ESPN has, and while he was occasionally brought in to provide his analysis, he felt ancillary to the network’s coverage. Ultimately, the Worldwide Leader has yet to replace Mike Schmitz, who left the network to join the Portland Trail Blazer’s front office in 2022.

Although the NBA Draft isn’t the same cottage industry that the NFL Draft has become, it’s a big enough event that ESPN should be investing more resources into it. There’s no reason that ESPN shouldn’t have an NBA Draft analyst capable of being on camera throughout the night, the same way it has Kiper, Field Yates and Matt Miller at its disposal for the NFL.

On a positive note, I thought the inaugural two-night format of the draft worked well and that the intimate setting of ESPN’s Seaport District Studios offered a nice contrast from the Night 1 spectacle at the Barclays Center. The circumstances surrounding James’ impending selection also allowed Myers to break major news on air — a rarity in the age of social media — revealing that Rich Paul was urging teams not to select his client and using the threat of James potentially playing in Australia to help steer him to the Los Angeles Lakers.

But while Day 2 — capped by the Lakers’ selection of James — provided cause for optimism, it remained overshadowed by Day 1’s errors and underwhelming analysis. Hopefully, ESPN spends the next year adjusting its approach to its NBA Draft coverage, with next year’s class already being much more highly touted than this year’s was.

Also, as an aside — and this is an NBA issue, not an ESPN one — can we please stop having draft picks who we already know are getting traded pose in the wrong team’s hat?

The NBA’s arcane and bizarre rules around trading draft picks only after the pick has been made also severely hurts the television product. Players are drafted by teams that everyone knows they will never play a minute for and it creates a ton of awkward moments where the broadcast has to dance around reality. And sometimes, the moments are interrupted by the breaking news itself. This could all be fixed instantly, but the NBA has settled on this way of doing business for years.

Whether it’s the NBA’s own rules, the lack of insight into the prospects, or the talent ESPN has available, the NBA Draft should be a much more entertaining product.

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