While NBC and Amazon will need to put together broadcast teams, ESPN already has plenty of commentary teams that have spent years together and could continue going with them. However, the network is choosing to make a change to their top commentary team as ESPN announced that Tim Legler will be replacing Doris Burke on their lead broadcast team:

ESPN today announced its deep roster of NBA game commentators for the 2025-26 season. Veteran analyst Tim Legler will join ESPN’s lead NBA broadcast team, which includes Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike Breen, analyst and NBA Champion Richard Jefferson and reporter Lisa Salters.

Legler, Breen, Jefferson and Salters will call the NBA Finals on ABC, the Conference Finals, high-profile first and second round games during the NBA Playoffs, a Christmas Day game and NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC – the marquee, national NBA game of the week. Legler is celebrating his 25th anniversary with ESPN, having served as an analyst since 2000.

ESPN today also announced it has reached a multi-year extension with analyst and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame broadcaster Doris Burke. Burke will continue to call high-profile NBA games on ESPN and ABC, including the NBA Sunday Showcase series. Her assignments will include full slates of games throughout the regular season and the NBA Playoffs. Burke will regularly work alongside play-by-play voice Dave Pasch. With this new deal, Burke’s tenure at ESPN will extend more than 35 years. She first covered basketball for ESPN in 1991 and has since been assigned to 17 NBA Finals, including six as a game analyst between ABC and ESPN Radio, as well as 11 as sideline reporter on ABC.

Burke has long been considered one of the top NBA analysts and as was noted in the announcement, she isn’t going anywhere as she has agreed to a contract extension with ESPN and will still be broadcasting games alongside Dave Pasch. Even still, it would be interesting to know why ESPN decided to make the change with Legler joining the lead broadcast team.

Regardless, there will be plenty of Burke and Legler doing their normal excellent work as analysts throughout this NBA season.

Shaquille O’Neal frustrated at Kobe Bryant being left out of NBA GOAT conversations

Plenty of NBA discussions focus on the greatest player of all-time which tends to come down to Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James, but Los Angeles Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal is tired of his teammate Kobe Bryant being left out of these debates.

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The 2025-26 season comes with a brand new media rights deal for the NBA, which has roped in NBC as well as Amazon. As such, national TV games will now be featured on NBC, Peacock and Amazon Prime, as well as both ESPN and ABC. And once again, the Lakers are at the top of the list in terms of number of nationally televised games.

According to Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, the Lakers, along with the Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors, are tied for the most national TV games in the 2025-26 season with 34:

The Knicks, Lakers, Thunder, and Warriors lead the NBA with 34 national TV or streamed games for the 2025–26 season.

Including games aired on ABC, ESPN, NBC, or streamed on Peacock and Prime Video. pic.twitter.com/RJCUFZC6kU

— Colin Salao (@colincsalao) August 14, 2025

There is a pretty large gap between these four teams and the rest of the league as the Minnesota Timberwolves and Houston Rockets are next in line at just 28 national games. But the Lakers, Thunder, Warriors and Knicks all make a ton of sense to be featured the most.

The Lakers need no explanation and the Thunder are the defending NBA Champions with the reigning MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Warriors, of course, are also extremely popular and feature superstar Stephen Curry, while the Knicks are one of the biggest brands in American Sports and are expected to be one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

For the Lakers, their games are spread out pretty well amongst the five platforms with 10 games on Amazon Prime, seven on ESPN and NBC, six on ABC and four on Peacock. Additionally, with this new media rights deal, there will be national games on at least one of those platforms every single night.

Lakers kick off 2025-26 regular season on national TV

The Lakers will be starting off this season with a pair of national TV games. First on Opening Night as Luka Doncic and LeBron JAmes will be taking on Stephen Curry when the Lakers host the Warriors on NBC. Three days later, the Lakers will be taking part in the first ever NBA broadcast on Amazon Prime as they take on the Timberwolves in a playoff rematch.

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With Amazon and NBC now on board, they will obviously want some exclusivity and priority with certain things, and broadcasting playoff games is one of them. These networks want as many eyes on them as possible and unfortunately, that means local networks are going to lose some of their playoff broadcasting.

According to Alex Silverman and Tom Friend of the Sports Business Journal, all first round playoff games will be exclusively shown on national television and won’t be allowed to air on local team networks:

As part of the NBA’s new three-pronged national package with ESPN/ABC, Amazon and NBC, all first-round playoff games will be exclusive national telecasts that cannot air on teams’ local networks. NBC is guaranteed at least 15 first-round games, while Prime Video is to stream no fewer than nine games in the first round.

It is an unfortunate but not uncommon situation here as the league wants to appease its new partners and those networks don’t want anything taking away from fans subscribing. The NBC games shouldn’t be much of a problem for fans to tune in on, but for those without Amazon Prime, they could miss some important matchups if they aren’t subscribed.

This is similar to what is being done in the NFL, also with Amazon, as certain games are exclusively on the streaming service including some playoff games. It will be an adjustment period without a doubt, but fans will have to simply get used to the new normal with this rights deal.

JJ Redick & Rob Pelinka earn votes in NBA Coach & Executive of the Year awards

A couple members of the Los Angeles Lakers family received some recognition as both head coach JJ Redick and general manager Rob Pelinka were among those receiving votes for NBA Coach of the Year and NBA Executive of the Year.

Both Redick and Pelinka finished sixth overall, but were deserving candidates who got at least a little love for what they did to help the Lakers take a step forward this season. Kenny Atkinson of the Cleveland Cavaliers won NBA Coach of the Year while Sam Presti of the Oklahoma City Thunder was named NBA Executive of the Year.

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According to Joe Flint, Amol Sharma and Isabella Simonetti of the Wall Street Journal, the NBA is closing in on a deal with ESPN, NBC and Amazon on a new TV rights deal that will be worth $76 billion over 11 years:

Now, with negotiations progressing as the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks prepare to face off in the NBA Finals, the league is on track to score big: It is closing in on deals with NBC, ESPN and Amazon that would bring in about $76 billion in media revenue over 11 years, people familiar with the discussions said.

This would be a massive deal for the NBA and one that will see a big change in how and where the NBA is viewed. The deal would see a lot of NBA games be available on streaming services Peacock and Amazon Prime as well as a soon-to-launch ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming service.

Unfortunately, this deal would also see the end of Turner Sports’ partnership with the league which would mean the extremely popular ‘Inside the NBA’ series would be no more. Though it was noted that Warner Bros. Discovery could still find their way in this new deal:

NBC is near an accord with the league to pay an average of $2.5 billion a year, people familiar with the deal talks said. It would show around 100 games per season, with about half airing exclusively on the Peacock streaming service, reflecting a major bet on the future of streaming. Games would air on NBC on Tuesdays and Sundays when there isn’t a conflict with NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”

Amazon’s $1.8 billion-a-year package would include regular-season and playoff games, the new NBA in-season tournament, and the “play-in” games in which teams compete for the final playoff spots. It also would have a share of the conference finals, which the media partners would split in a rotation, the people familiar with the terms said.

Disney would retain an NBA package and would continue to air the NBA Finals, with payments averaging about $2.6 billion a year, people familiar with the terms say, up from $1.5 billion under the current deal. Disney would get fewer games than under its current deal. ESPN’s deal will allow the company to air games on its direct-to-consumer streaming service, which is set to launch in 2025.

Warner, led by Chief Executive David Zaslav, still has a right to match a rival package, and the league could always carve out a new package for the company in the final stretch, but its options are limited.

Ultimately, these things are all about the money and ESPN, Amazon and NBC are willing to shell out a lot of it to have the NBA on their platforms. Both Amazon and NBC have had great success with the NFL and adding the NBA will only make their platforms that much more popular.

Austin Reaves chooses Mavericks over Celtics in 2024 NBA Finals

In this potential new TV rights deal, the airing of the NBA Finals wouldn’t change as they will continue to air on ESPN and ABC. The 2024 NBA Finals are set to begin on Thursday, featuring the Dallas Mavericks facing the Boston Celtics.

Of course, Los Angeles Lakers fans everywhere are rooting against the hated Celtics and Austin Reaves fed into that when discussing who he is picking.

“I gotta go Dallas just because I can’t choose Boston,” Reaves said.

The hatred between the two franchises will continue to live on and Reaves knows better than to choose anything Boston.

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