Tag: turner

NBA fans were baffled when CNN Sports (of all outlets) reported that the Bucks hired Doc Rivers

This whole saga is incredibly bizarre!

After the Milwaukee Bucks suddenly fired head coach Adrian Griffin, NBA champion Doc Rivers emerged as a leading candidate to replace him.

Despite the winning record in Milwaukee, Griffin’s departure wasn’t exactly shocking. Rivers, who was the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers until last season, makes plenty of sense as his successor. Rivers was already serving as an “informal consultant” for the team, per The Athletic.

What baffled everyone, however, is that the first outlet credited with breaking the news was CNN Sports. Even though CNN is a trusted news outlet, it isn’t a desk known for its sports department.

So what exactly happened here? How did basketball insiders like Adrian Wojnarowski (currently Rivers’ colleague at ESPN) and Shams Charania get scooped by an outlet that doesn’t have much of a sports presence?

During a broadcast of NBA on TNT, host Adam Lefkoe relayed that CNN Sports was reporting that Doc Rivers was accepting the head coaching gig with Milwaukee.

Jamal Crawford, the longtime NBA player who is now an analyst on the show, immediately asked Lefkoe to confirm that the outlet was indeed CNN. How is this possible? Others had the same question. Here is more from Awful Announcing:

“This Doc Rivers report is the first time CNN Sports has been mentioned as a thing in literally decades. CNN Sports Tonight, the highlight show alternative to SportsCenter from Turner, hasn’t aired since 2001. CNN was linked with the Sports Illustrated brand before the platform was taken over by Bleacher Report sports content in 2013. In fact, all of Warner Bros. Discovery’s sports branding had transitioned to Bleacher Report in the last several years before it literally just rebranded to TNT Sports earlier this month.”

A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports later reported, however, that the news was fully vetted by CNN before it was passed along to TNT.

It is important to note that CNN and TNT are both owned by the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. But at the time of the broadcast, there was nothing on the CNN Sports website that mentioned Rivers.

Perez was told this was likely due to CNN’s coverage of the GOP primary in New Hampshire.

As noted on Twitter/X by New York Times reporter Kevin Draper, a CNN Sports correspondent named Coy Wire appeared on NBA TV (also owned by Warner Bros. Discovery) to confirm that Rivers was hired by Milwaukee.

Draper added that he was also told by a CNN spokesperson that all of the reporting went through their “editorial process” at the network.

Later in the night, CNN Sports eventually published a story that credited “a source with knowledge of the conversations” but the reporting had no byline.

But this was far from the end of the story and the confusion continued.

Chris Haynes, who is widely considered the network’s top basketball insider and news breaker at NBA on TNT and Bleacher Report (which is also owned by Warner Bros. Discovery) refuted the report.

He claimed there is “no agreement” yet in place for Rivers to take over as the head coach of the Bucks. Bill Reiter of CBS Sports also reported that there is no agreement in place.

So what exactly happened here? Was this a giant miscommunication or was CNN Sports the first publication to break this news? Basketball fans had a lot of questions.

Are Ron Rivera, Scott Turner and Taylor Heinicke on the rocks?

Signs seem to be pointing to some sort of a split between Heinicke, Rivera and Turner.

Has the relationship of Ron Rivera, Scott Turner and Taylor Heinicke reached a fork in the road?

Sunday, following a Commanders 26-6 win over the visiting Cowboys, Heinicke was emotional leaving the field. Was he contemplating that he might have played his last game for the Burgundy and Gold?

Two weeks prior, Heinicke was visibly uncomfortable, even telling the press, “It sucks” when he had been pulled during the second half of the 49ers game, and Wentz replaced him.

Heinicke had to expect with an elimination game against the Browns approaching, Rivera would give Wentz the start. Rivera had traded for Wentz and agreed to pay him $28 million this season. Of course, he went back to Wentz after the way Heinicke struggled in both games against the Giants.

Even more, losing to the Browns, Rivera had turned back to Heinicke for the finale against Dallas. We do know Heinicke basically said no thank you, Ron. What we don’t know is his attitude and how he expressed it to Rivera.

For the record, last week Rivera, to the press, expressed that Heinicke was being a good teammate in stating that he felt Howell had worked all year, and if Rivera was going to play Howell some, then why not go ahead and let Howell start the game as well.

I see two sides to this pretty quickly. Taylor might be wanting to leave to launch out for a bigger stage elsewhere with a bigger paycheck. Yet, will the grass be greener for Heinicke in another NFL town? Will he find another team willing to pay him starter’s money?

Rivera is now in an uncomfortable position with the majority of the fan base absolutely adoring Heinicke, to such a degree that if he doesn’t retain Heinicke the fan base is upset.

Certainly, Sam Howell, playing well against Dallas will help Rivera make his decision. In addition, if Rivera brings in another quarterback next year, how will the fan base accept the new guy?

Might Rivera be thinking about not bringing back Heinicke because Taylor is frankly reaching a celebrity status that forgoes rational thinking for many?

After Wentz was injured in Week 6 this season, requiring surgery, Heinicke started six games, and the Commanders went 5-1. However, the last three he started the Commanders were 0-2-1.

Taylor Heinicke was with Rivera and Turner in Carolina. In fact, Heinicke was with Turner (prior to Carolina) in Minnesota as well. They also obviously continued that relationship in Washington dating back to December of the 2020 season.

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ESPN, CBS, Turner, and real solutions for college basketball

College sports doesn’t seem to get it, so maybe TV can nudge it in the right direction.

College football is slipping away, as we can all see. That’s really bad. It would be worse if we can’t have an NCAA Tournament or a Final Four in 2021, marking a second straight year without March Madness.

The good news — or at least, the hopeful part of this not-very-pleasant reality — is that college basketball can wait. The season isn’t done if it can’t start in January. If we have February-through-April or March-through May college basketball, is that a bad outcome? I don’t see how.

Merely being able to have a season with an NCAA tourney and Final Four would be a saving moment for college sports. It wouldn’t save everyone, but it would save a lot. It wouldn’t fix all problems, but it would fix some. It wouldn’t restore athletic budgets, but it would reduce the extent and depth of pain being felt in athletic departments across the country.

So, once again, we are reminded that:

  1. While sports aren’t the most important thing in a pandemic, they are still very important. Therefore, athletes are very essential workers and need protections and benefits consistent with that notion.
  2. If we are to play a 2021 NCAA Tournament and Final Four, a bubble is obviously — obviously! — the best path for college basketball, given the success of the NBA. Therefore, saving a lot of budgets and psyches in college sports is tethered to a bubble plan.

You would think these two basic realities would make college sports leaders much more receptive to a basketball bubble, but so far, you’re not seeing clear agreement on this.

None other than Larry Scott, the commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, has flatly stated the bubble is a bad idea:

Let’s be precise here: Scott wasn’t just commenting on football, but COLLEGE SPORTS. If Scott wants to play basketball, we are left to assume that Scott wants a “normal” framework — those are my quote marks, not his.

If that is the expectation from Scott and other college sports leaders, we’re screwed unless we get a vaccine in January, which — if we’re being honest — is not a likely or expected outcome.

Remember this about a vaccine: Even if a successful one is developed, it then has to be widely distributed. Populations around the world would need to access it. The coronavirus patients in hospitals and trauma centers and emergency rooms would presumably need the vaccine first. The vaccine would need to be priced affordably; it would have to go through the regulatory process. All of that would take additional time after the actual development of the vaccine, so even under the already-optimistic timeline of a January discovery of an effective vaccine, it would still take two months if not more for the vaccine to scale up production and be accessible to the wider American population. If, therefore, the vaccine wasn’t discovered/created until April, it would simply not be ready before the end of the current academic year and college sports cycle: June 30, 2021.

Translation: College sports leaders can hope for a vaccine, but a 2021 NCAA Tournament and Final Four can’t be planned based on a vaccine’s arrival.

In other words: A bubble has to be the plan IF we want to save the 2021 Big Dance and Final Four.

What will it take, then, for a bubble to happen?

My first answer is television.

We have said for the past decade if not longer that television calls the shots in college sports to begin with. Television’s voice has been awfully muted in the midst of this pandemic.

ESPN doesn’t carry the NCAA Tournament — CBS and Turner do — but ESPN is the main college sports broadcaster, and it carries the vast majority of major college basketball games through the regular season and then Championship Week (the conference tournaments).

ESPN — which is staring at the loss of a full college football season plus a full bowl season — needs to come together with CBS and Turner (which are in danger of missing a second straight year of NCAA Tournament advertising) and devise an offer to help fund and set up a bubble.

If the NCAA is serious about having a 2021 tournament and Final Four, it would be wise to listen.

The details of the plan are secondary, though I have offered a broad and tentative preliminary outline as a guide. The main point is for television to get off the damn couch and be a participant in a push for real solutions, instead of remaining a bystander.

College basketball has time to save its season, but that time cannot be wasted.

Football wasted the past five months. Television outlets need to make sure basketball won’t waste the coming five months in preparation for a regular season, an NCAA tourney, and a Final Four.