1. In a shocking turn of events, ESPN severed ties with its chief NBA analyst, Jeff Van Gundy.
The move comes as part of a wave of cost cuts from layoffs affecting on-air talent at World Wide Leader.
Van Gundy, who joined ESPN in 2007, has called the last 17 NBA Finals games alongside Mike Breen and Mark Jackson.
I think Van Gundy won’t be leaving a broadcasting job for long. With NBA TV deals expiring in 2024, new outlets are expected to pick up packages, including NBC and Amazon.
And with Jeff’s brother, Stan, already working for TNT, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that network work on Van Gundy to pair the brothers.
There are several things that make Van Gundy a great NBA analyst. At the top of the list is his ability to tell it like it is, not things like sugar coating and summoning anyone or anything that needs to be summoned.
Van Gundy has treated viewers to many rants and hilarious pop culture moments over the years. Here are some examples of his most memorable moments.
• Intentional errors
• flipping
• More flipping
• Rihanna
• One-way
2.GQ He gave an oral history of a memorable Brian Windhurst meme from last year when he was speaking about jazz at take first.
From meme hand gestures to why "take first" The host thought it was bad TV, so this is the story of how Brian Windhurst’s captivating two-minute monologue came together. https://t.co/XFgbfNLtRs
– GQ Magazine (GQMagazine) June 29, 2023
The best part of the story is that Windhorst credits the chair he was sitting in as a contributor to his viral moment. From the article:
Windhurst: Chairs On take first She is very very good. At that very moment, I leaned back because this chair is such an amazing chair. You would never lean back normally, and so when I leaned back as part of the storytelling, I made gestures that I wouldn’t normally do. So far it has happened, but these are the best chairs. Stephen A. He has strict chair requirements, and he’s been rewarded with amazing, gorgeous chairs at that desk.”
3. Midway through Thursday’s game, Cardinals analyst Jim Edmonds expressed confusion about the team’s changing titles in recent years. While everyone else was fixated on what Edmonds was saying, I couldn’t get enough sheer satisfaction in the voice of St. Louis’ play-by-play man Chip Caray, when the Cardinals’ Nolan Gorman stopped by to end the inning and Edmonds sputtered weirdly. When Caray said, “Onnnn the ground to SECOND,” it totally came off as, “Thank goodness we’re going to the commercial.”
Jim Edmonds, everyone. pic.twitter.com/viMXaMH6UO
– Chad Finn (@GlobeChadFinn) June 30, 2023
4. Most of us have been thrown into a group text message with someone we may not know because their number is not stored in our phone. This happened to Bat McAfee. And it turns out that the mystery person is none other than Undertaker.
"Undertaker is the nicest guy I’ve ever met..
We were on a group message talking about gym equipment and the guy didn’t tell me Mark was the Undertaker..
I went out to his house to try out the equipment and he was telling me about his entire career"@tweet #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/ut9HBpoWhF
– Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) June 28, 2023
5. With Starling Marte hitting the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning and the bases loaded and two with the Mets down 3-2 against the Brewers Thursday night, one fan offered some sound advice: “Don’t swing at everything.”
Mart then proceeded to swing and missed three straight pitches to finish the game.
"Don’t swing at everything"
He was swinging at everything pic.twitter.com/fi8Dk2YhWz
– Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) June 30, 2023
6.this week SI Media with Jimmy Traina The podcast features a great conversation with SiriusXM’s Adam Shine.
Shine talks about why he loves radio so much, the challenges of doing national exposure for SiriusXM and the differences between hosting a radio show and podcasting.
Other topics covered with Schein include who he would like to interview right now, what he does on radio during a slow news day, radio tricks he hates, why he does podcasts, has the perfect voice for radio and more.
After Schein, Sal Licata from New York’s WFAN Radio and SNY TV joins me for our weekly “Traina Ideas” segment. This week, we discussed Sal still on top of his big promotion for WFAN, as Ryan Seacrest has been named wheel of fortune Host, the Jets’ reluctance to show up Blows hardand the surreal Season of Shohei Ohtani, and so much more.
You can listen to or download the podcast below appleAnd Spotify And Google.
You can also watch SI Media with Jimmy Traina on YouTube.
7. Random Video of the Day: This is Traina’s last thoughts a bit. We’ll take the next week off and come back the next week. So since we have a holiday coming up and you’re probably attending a party or a cookout or some festivities, I thought I’d leave you with some classics. Seinfeld.
Be sure to Follow up on previous versions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media with Jimmy Traina on appleAnd Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Facebook TwitterAnd Instagram And Tik Tok.