Oh, how the plot has thickened. ESPN has been going through a PR crisis involving Rachel Nichols complaining to LeBron James rep about Maria Taylor taking some of her shine away from her, two former ESPN analysts Jemele Hill and Amin Elhassan came on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Tuesday to talk about the Maria Taylor situation.
Amin then took time out of the segment to bring up another major name who like Nichols, is also a huge part of ESPN’s NBA coverage and that would be one Adrian Wojnarowski.
Amin went off by pointing out the hypocrisy in an article Woj wrote for the NY Times calling Rachel Nichols a “bad teammate”.
“Are you [expletives] me? This guy is going to call someone a bad teammate? For real? For real? Do we want to talk about the black careers that he put a foot on because he was threatened by? Do we want to talk about that? Do you wanna talk about the newsbreakers – with an ’S’ – of diverse background, who have rapports with players that Adrian doesn’t have. That he saw as threatening because his sources are all front office people… and assistant coaches trying to move up… and maybe a video coordinator that’s trying to get a better job somewhere else,” Elhassan said.
“But he can’t talk to LeBron. And he can’t talk to Chris Paul or Damian Lillard or some of these other guys. He doesn’t have that rapport with them. So what he does is he steps on them. And beyond that particular angle, he steps on a lot of people over there. He steps on a lot of people over there. Right? When you see a byline that says ‘as reported by Adrian Wojnarowski and fill-in-the-blank.’ That’s the old, ‘yeah, put my name on it and put it out there.’”
This is a major bomb since Woj is ESPN’s go-to guy for any and all ESPN news. If these rumors are true and more evidence comes out, ESPN will have an even bigger PR issue.
Rachel went on the air Monday to apologize before ESPN made their decision to kick her off the NBA Finals and replaced her with Malika Andrews.
“The first thing they teach you in journalism school is ‘Don’t be the story,’ and I don’t plan to break that rule today or distract from the (NBA) Finals,” Nichols said. “But I also don’t want to let this moment pass without saying how much I respect, how much I value our colleagues here at ESPN, [and] how deeply, deeply sorry I am for disappointing those I hurt, particularly Maria Taylor, and for how grateful I am to be part of this outstanding team.”
Well, Mrs.Nichols, you didn’t just become the story, but you chose the wrong ESPN personality to mess with and it may cost you your job at the death star.
Flip the page and go 41:02 to watch Amin’s statement on Woj.
