Udonis Haslem rose rapidly in NBA media over the past year or so, jumping from a podcast to ESPN to a role on the inaugural season of the NBA on Prime Video. All the while, Haslem has worked for the Miami Heat as the team’s vice president of player development.
Those opposing viewpoints collided Friday on The Pat McAfee Show, as ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania joined the program to break down the latest with the NBA Finals and the offseason rumor mill. Naturally, the conversation shifted to Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, widely regarded as the most available superstar player this summer.
When Charania reported that Miami is one of the teams most aggressively pursuing Durant, McAfee tossed to Haslem for his perspective as a Heat lifer. That’s when Haslem found himself between a rock (his job analyzing the NBA for the Worldwide Leader) and a hard place (his role in the Heat front office).
“Kevin Durant would fit in anywhere, but definitely I think he fits into Miami Heat culture,” Haslem said. “I can’t speak too much on it, but I would say he’s a guy who comes in and just has to be Kevin Durant.”
As the PMS crew laughed, Charania interjected.
“Yo UD, speak on it, man,” Charania said. “You’re on The Pat McAfee Show.”
Haslem played it off, but made it clear his job with the Heat was getting in the way of him fully dissecting the possible trade.
“I’m the Vice President of Player Development. I gotta keep my coins coming in,” he said. “If he happens to come into the Miami Heat locker room, he comes into a situation where you have a Hall of Fame coach already … you’ve got a team that has a culture already. So the questions that people have about Kevin Durant, can he be a leader? He doesn’t have to be a leader in Miami. They already have leadership, they already have a culture, they already have a hell of a head coach who’s a figure.”
It was an awkward confrontation with the split priorities that some analysts face. Throughout the last NFL season, lead Fox analyst Tom Brady faced extreme scrutiny due to his ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. ESPN MLB analyst Jessica Mendoza was dropped from Sunday Night Baseball due to a serious editorial misstep by the network, as well as her role as senior advisor to the New York Mets. Grant Hill works as an analyst for TNT despite owning a stake in the Atlanta Hawks and running the men’s national team for USA Basketball.
Udonis Haslem is hardly unique, but it puts ESPN (and soon Amazon) and viewers in a difficult spot when an analyst directly shirks a conversation due to their conflicts of interest.
At the same time, Haslem is not necessarily wrong to do so. The NBA fines teams and strips them of draft picks for “tampering” with other teams’ players. By speaking about a player under contract with a rival team, Haslem, a team employee, could hurt the Heat organization.
So instead, Haslem put a bow on the segment by leaving Durant’s legacy open-ended:
“Kevin Durant has put himself in a situation where he’s earned the right to pick and choose where he wants to go.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.