NBA analyst Jalen Rose was among the 20 on-air personalities laid off by ESPN on Friday, and the network couldn’t have handled the situation more poorly that morning.
Let’s start here: Rose was scheduled to appear on the Mike Greenberg-led morning program Get Up to discuss the upcoming day of NBA free agency, as well as trade destinations for James Harden.
Rose did not make that appearance hours before being let go by the network, but ESPN blamed “audio issues” for the analyst’s absence.
“We were going to have Jalen Rose give his input on [the Harden trade destinations] but we’re having some audio issues with him out in L.A.,” fill-in host Brian Custer said.
But, he was dealing with supposed audio issues just an hour before news of his layoff surfaced. 😬 pic.twitter.com/XxIrosZkyE
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 30, 2023
The sidestep by Custer, which put the network in an impossible spot, came minutes after he teased Rose’s appearance for the first time.
“Alright, let’s bring in now one of our NBA analysts Jalen Rose,” he said before pausing. “He’s going to join us as well, but guys let’s talk about this Joel Embiid situation,” he then said, as he quickly moved the panel to a different subject.
What made things even more awkward is that ESPN NBA reporter Nick Friedell, who was sitting on the set of Get Up on Friday morning, has also reportedly been let go as part of the layoffs, according to Front Office Sports.
It was a tough day for ESPN as Disney reportedly mandated layoffs of several key pieces of the network. Longtime NFL host Suzy Kolber, College GameDay analyst David Pollack and lead NBA color commentator Jeff Van Gundy were among those let go on Friday.
