Most of the worst reporters/personalities are former players lol

I agree it’s become super weak but his reasoning is pretty terrible

The whole used to play thing is such a farce. Reggie Miller was a great player and fucking SUCKS on the microphone. The 2 things do not equate

Is this a diss at his daughter

LeBron is the only guy of his stature across any sport that I’ve seen have prominent media members and former players, teammates etc. go at him like this. It’s unreal.

Former players are the worst. I’d rather listen to an Xs and Os nerd who is an actual journalist

Not saying he’s right or wrong, but are there sour grapes on his part?

I always wondered why he didn’t go work for The Ringer and get reunited with David Jacoby.

Or why he didn’t create a platform for a new Jalen and Jacoby show. Their podcast was really good and I’m sure he has the money to get it off the ground.

NBA coverage has been weak for decades. But sure, let’s put all this on LeBron because why not at this point I guess. Let’s blame LeBron for the crack epidemic of the 80s while we’re at it.

jalen rose can give you 81 reasons on why nba coverage sucks now

People really be just bringing up Bron’s name like an SEO keyword.

Coverage could definitely be better but there are plenty of former players podcasts with garbage analysis

People who put call themselves doctors when they only have an honorary degree has become so weak

Dawg it was like 30 years of people sucking Michael Jordan’s dick. Nothing has changed except the bald guy they fellate.

I mean it sucked when guys like Jalen rose started being analysts

The booth in the finals this year was 10x better than goddamn Reggie & Stan last year

Life is learning that just because you played ball, does not mean you know ball.

Source: 90% of past players with a microphone

The lack of actual journalists on stations like ESPN is why it has gone downhill.

Or guys from the 90’s who hate the nba

We need people like Jeremy Lin covering the NBA fulltime

Rage against the Klutch propaganda, Jalen!

the irony is that his own daughter is part of the problem he’s describing.

Oh didnt know jalen rose was this level of a dumbfuck

It’s the type of coverage that’s pushed that is the problem. Hot takes and unwinnable GOAT debates. Disrespecting players has also become normalized.

Most of what’s on the main media outlets is bad cringe humor, interpersonal dynamics that are boomer core or endless hot takes shaped by pushing conflicts ( LeBron sucks etc ) 

Kendrick Perkins does most his work from a toilet it feels like. Steven a is unbearable as most all agree  - the former tnt crew is also out dated now. We get it you guys make fun of each other. What else. It’s all so fucking boring. 

Lebron’s teammates are a *lot* of former players at this point. At a guess 80 or so?

So the same as the Jordan era?

Lebron has played with like half the players in NBA history. Might be hard to find someone who wasn’t a former teammate at this point.

Richard Jefferson and Perkins are the worst offenders

Or someone that dyes their hair and facial hair the absolute most darkest and fakest looking shade of jet black that sticks out like a sore thumb compared to their naturally greying age.

Like, just let it go man…

I’m honestly pretty sick of how poor the former nba players are as tv presenters. ESPN, even though they obviously don’t give a single fuck about the product anymore, should send these dudes to broadcast journalism boot camp for a year before putting them on tv. And that boot camp headmaster should have the power to expel Draymond Green

If your a fan of sports and not impressed by what Lebron has achieved in his career your simply an idiot.

Rose is angry it’s no longer non stop Jordan glazing as it was 20 years ago. Does he want 50 more Skip Bayless??

That’s Dr. Jalen Rose for you

This guy called Josh Jackson the next Andre Iguodala

I think it’s in great condition if you’re not listening to old dudes upset that they aren’t famous or as talented as the current athletes but that’s just my take. Listening to even Gilbert arenas break down the game shows you how different everything is him, Teague, jj when he used to have his podcast listening to them break down the game to a point even we can understand is incredible. Even boogie cousins Tony Allen and shump too just don’t bother with espn or fox or whatever. Anyone who hires Kendrick Perkins and or Dan orlovsky as “experts” in their fields is just goofy lmao. I don’t want to hear Perkins of all people say someone isn’t good and I DAMN sure wouldn’t want to her orlvosky in nfl talks talking about qb play

Y’all expecting former players to be sharp on the mic. That’s an unreasonable expectation. Its like expecting nba reporters to be good at basketball

Agreed.

Most IGLs are not fraggers

And unfortunately for us, Reggie Miller

Nothing makes me change the channel faster than seeing a former player offering “analysis”.

I don’t think having played in the nba has anything to do with the quality of their commentary

Jalen Rose, he of an honorary doctorate who now displays his name as Dr. Jalen Anthony Rose on Twitter, is mad because he thinks other folks are cosplaying as NBA experts? Okay.

He’s 100% correct. A lot of the former players are terrible too… I think sports media, in general, is at an all time low. You got people saying shit just to go viral, you got talking heads who clearly stan certain players like Jalen mentioned, then you got people constantly talking about these guys’ personal lives… Shits a joke.

It doesn’t matter if they’re former players or not.

Hot take artists fucking suck. They’re what’s killing sports media as a whole because controversy sells and that’s all these fucking networks care about. They don’t care about the sport they care about money.

That’s just an awful take. The worst NBA TV talking heads are all players.

I mean he has played against like 10% of all NBA players ever lol

I would actually argue the opposite. The downfall of sports journalism has been the former player to analyst pipeline.

It’s completely changed how people analyze the sport. And not in a good way

At first I thought it was Jalen brown who said this somewhere and i was like damn bro

Only thing worth a damn is the new Amazon coverage, everything else is the same shit regardless with or without former players.

I never got the “you never played so your opinion is not valid” argument. It’s coming from a perspective you as an NBA player will never have so it has value to the conversation for fans.

I would prefer more people who didn’t play, tbh.

It does suck. ESPN leading the way.

It’s 2026, and people are still making the “You can’t talk about XYZ without having played XYZ” argument.

I got a call from the Broncenter, I am now going to derail Jalen Rose’s career with my 20 accounts.

Jalen has an activist hat half of the time. He’s terrible too.

No one ever watched an NBA Show and asked “Where’s Jalen Rose?”

This man went on ESPN, Drunk, with a sprayed on hairline, beefing with Kendrick Perkins at 8AM 😂

he’s right though

Amazon’s coverage is pretty good with mostly non-lebron teammate former players.

He’s not lying. But don’t expect many nuance replies since r/nba is 98% LeBron Stans.

Ehh idk I’ve seen some of Gilbert Arenas takes on the business of the NBA and damn he doesn’t know anything

Former players are also becoming Bron Stan’s because they’re starting to realize how much it pays, which is what Kendrick Perkins found out years ago and he got all kinds of hate for it.

Because the league tries to prop up former stars. Former stars make for terrible analysts and commentators.

Look at inside the NBA. Kenny is the only one who offers any real value as an analyst. Charles gets a pass because he’s funny but in truth he doesn’t even watch the games.

I still don’t understand why/how Shaq has a job.

Isn’t the biggest member of the NBA media Stephen A Smith? Known Lebron hater?

Inside the NBA has 3 former players. I guess Shaq is technically a former Lebron teammate but that’s what happens when someone plays for a quarter century. They certainly aren’t stans, Chuck has Lebron embarrassingly low on his all time list, Shaq has Lebron and Kobe at the same level.

First Thing’s First has Nick Wright - a Lebron Stan. But he hardly ‘leads the media’. He doesn’t even have an MVP voting ballot. Chris Broussard does, but he also has Jordan as the GOAT.

Where are all these Lebron stans, Jalen?

Legs! Legs is awesome.

If anything the last 30 years has been Jordan stans running the media , is time to pass the torch to LeBron stans

Don’t worry, it will only get worse when Draymond retires.

Idk if this is a hot take but we should have people who are just fans so they can communicate what fans are thinking no? Maybe he’s referring to Stephen A or some other hot take artists but I wish there were more normal fans in NBA media to represent just the regular casual fan

If only there were a word to collectively refer to men/women

there are a lot of player’s podcasts around. And they are not improving anything

Who were the former coverage leaders that were former NBA players?

Funny thing is, he’s doing exactly the thing that all these NBA media folks do and that’s throw a slight at LeBron for clicks and views.

It has become different. There is so many niche nba coverage that the main nba coverage has to appeal to the masses as much as possible. So they have people covering it that cover every other sports too. If you want nuanced nba coverage, you can seek it out and find it. The few things I do miss is open court and historical lore nba coverage.

I wish former NBA players (at least those on TV) could talk/feel the way about the game post-their playing days like former NFL players.

Because there seems to be a significant difference. Say what you will about the skill/charisma on the mic of guys like Greg Olson, Romo (when not drunk), Brady, Collinsworth and Aikman. But they rarely, if ever, are consistently negative toward current players in the same way as former NBA players in media.

Former NBA players come across as bitter so frequently.

LeBron’s played with like 36% of the NBA to ever lace up sneakers

You must be young. It is the same cycle that has happened every era. There was the same thing every time a generational pillar of the sports ages out or comes close to aging out.

What is unique to this era is social media and player podcasts.

And I don’t get the obsession with “people who didn’t play.” Give me reporters. Give me good writers. I don’t need Gilbert Arenas pulling stories out of his ass. I don’t need Lebron claiming NBA players can’t flip plays in practice. Please don’t learn about the history of the sport from IG, tik tok and youtube shorts. There is a whole collection of good reporting and old games you can watch

LeBron played with 37% of all NBA players in history

Well, first of all, we don’t need exclusively former players to talk about the game. Most of the best broadcasters or analysts never played professionally. We have plenty of former players on TV/podcasts that prove your time in the NBA doesn’t mean you’re knowledgable or entertaining.

Many of you seem to be missing the core point. It’s not about being able to talk about the game, understand what’s going on, analysing matchups etc. there are specific things that high level players will simply understand better than your average analyst, even if they don’t always communicate that as effectively as possible. It’s extremely difficult to communicate perfectly in real time on air - think you’d never fuck up? Guarantee you would, and badly.

I’ll give you an example as to why ex players are needed. Fans across sports default to complexity because it feels sophisticated. They like to feel that coaches and analysts in the game are running seminars for easily bored multimillionaire young men, and that they employ tactics that ordinary people couldn’t possibly conjure up.

The truth is far more mundane. Coaching, development and tactical frameworks are very much works in progress. You really think you know more than Doc Rivers? You’re misunderstanding the roles. Clubs have analysts of kinds - performance, tactical etc for that.

Here’s the thing - players often default to x team or player wanted it more than y, because sometimes that’s how it is. They can see the lack of effort fighting over screens, setting lazy screens, lackadaisical off ball movement etc that led to a compound failure. They lived it. You shouldn’t always chalk execution failures up to coaching incompetence. Most mistakes are execution failures for a variety of reasons. Almost no (and most likely no) NBA coach is going to send his team out ill prepared, it just doesn’t happen in this day and age.

So in summary, Reggie Miller knows the game better than the vast majority of people, coming at things from a different angle. Also, they know their audience - they need someone’s grandmother who never played or even watched much to understand what’s going on.

Performative sophistication will never be the preferred mode of analysis in broadcasting. You can throw some in provided the context is clear but if many of you think heavy analysis of X’s and O’s During halftime will ever be a thing then you’re misreading the audience. They have limited time to break everything down and to do it you have to resort to cliches and simple talk 

No one who didn’t play the game at the highest level even deserves to watch to be honest

I was far more entertained with Jalen Rose acting awkwardly around Sage Steele than I was ever enamored with his commentating anyway.

Commentating is first and foremost about communicating with fans, expressing insight by deconstruction. Food critics don’t need to know how to run a kitchen to review food. Film critics don’t need extensive film making careers to be insightful. Participating in a sport, even at a high level, does not necessarily provide the proper skills to communicate insight to lay people.

Halberstam wrote the finest NBA basketball book of all time. Caitlin Cooper is probably writing the best analytical content on basketball, like ever. Neither played in the NBA. There are and there has been so many good/great writers and commentators, the vast majority were good at their craft because they were good journalists first and they were good at collecting and explaining data second.

Ex players that produce good NBA content, per data rather than nostalgia are rare, with JJ Redick being the roaring exception. And he leveraged that to get back into the NBA as a coach.

The players on there right now are carried entirely by their personality, they rarely actually commentate on the fundamentals of the game they just farm for hype moments and comedy.

Lebron is someone id love to see commentate, Curry as well. But we’re getting dudes that did play but just say dumb shit to get views.

I definitely hate listening to most people who didn’t play in the league analyze NBA basketball. It’s just vagaries and meaningless statements with them. Stephen A gets an exception for being funny.

There’s nothing that makes a former player better at covering the sport than someone else.

There are 10 times more awful former players than good ones. We just need coverage from people who care about the sport enough to cover it properly. Which we don’t have.

He’s not wrong, not saying former players are the answer, but definitely too many women on these shows talking about sports they know nothing about

The worst of NBA media coverage is almost universally former players.

Not sure what Rose thought he was working up, there.

Jalen went HARD for the Westbrook trade to the Lakers. He said it was going to be a great fit. He said everyone in the media was dumb who didn’t agree with him.

I lost every single ounce of respect for his takes after that. I just can’t wrap my head around anyone thinking Westbook would have been a good fit for that Lakers team.

Jalen does exactly what he is complaining about.

Lebron is great, if analysts acknowledge he is great they are not stans. Otherwise the entire NBA media have been Jordan stans since the 90’s and still are today

He wants people to know that he is now Dr. Jalen Anthony Rose.