ESPN has lost the plot

Zach Lowe, the network's best NBA writer, podcast and TV presence, is laid off on the eve of the new season. What are y'all thinking?

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

---

Neapolitan Woman; Iyla Repin; 1894

News broke from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand on Thursday that ESPN has laid off Zach Lowe. This is without question the dumbest NBA media news that I ever heard, up there with the time that ESPN let the brilliant

Marc Stein

and

Henry Abbott

go on (I believe) the same day.

ESPN is all about multi-platform stars. The four-letter has properties in every medium, and has embraced voices that can thrive in several of them. Lowe unequivocally has the best NBA podcast on ESPN (it is one of 3-4 NBA podcasts for which I listen to every episode), he is the best paid-access writer the network has, and he’s a consistently great addition to the suite of ESPN’s studio efforts, though admittedly I only watch NBA Today and not the morning shows like Get Up and whatever else they have.

Lowe has in some ways adopted a mold of media star from past decades of NBA coverage, like an ultra-nice Peter Vecsey (who penned venomous column for the New York Post then shared some slightly less venomous takes on NBA on NBC) or Hall of Famer David Aldridge, who wrote for the Washington Post, ESPN and others while also being the best sideline reporter in the league. (Hell, even Stephen A. Smith straddled the columnist and T.V. personality line for a hot minute before going full broadcast. I remember Stephen A. explaining how, to manage his time, he wrote his columns on his Blackberry and being amazed.)

But in the full-digital era, Zach has evolved the practice and created a path for other smart analysts like him. The podcast is huge, both an opportunity to get newsmaking interviews with important NBA characters (he just got J.J. Redick to reveal his starting lineup a week before training camp), to analyze the biggest NBA storylines with other media members (many of which are in the ESPN family) and to uplift outside voices, including me. (I went on Lowe Post twice in the mid-2010s before adopting my current “no podcast appearances diet.” He’s also shouted me out multiple times, which always leads to a subscriber spike.)

There’s also the small matter of the fact that ESPN just committed billions of dollars to being one of the homes of the NBA. Ain’t this a rub?