It’s a huge week in sports. We just witnessed one of the great March Madness tournaments in history with the men and women sharing centerstage. UConn cemented a dynasty while Caitlin Clark played made another incredible run to the title game. The Masters tees off today. The NBA and NHL regular seasons are reaching their climax with playoff positioning up for grabs. The NFL Draft is just two weeks away. So what does Undisputed and Skip Bayless talk about today?
Re-litigating LeBron James’ block of Andre Iguodala in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals.
Yes, seriously.
James broke down the play on his in-depth podcast with JJ Redick this week, which would seem to be an appropriate venue for the discussion since it’s his first-hand perspective of one of the most iconic plays in NBA history. That’s what his podcast with Redick is all about in being for super basketball junkies.
But a nationally televised sports show giving time to analyzing the play once again eight years later is totally bizarre. Do they want to do the Immaculate Reception while they’re at it? The Stanford band on the field? The Tuck Rule? LeBron James is playing basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers right now! What are we doing here!
And it’s not only that, the entire segment is built around Bayless (once again) discrediting James and trying to give credit to the play to JR Smith for “assisting” LeBron’s efforts. Bayless would be better off talking about the 49ers receiver who ran a great underneath route to give Dwight Clark space in the back of the endzone for The Catch.
As we have chronicled so far this year, Undisputed‘s ratings have fallen off a cliff. And when it comes to the topics the show talks about, it’s pretty much half Dallas Cowboys and half LeBron talk with nothing else really featuring in any prominent role whatsoever. And while those two subjects may bring in the ratings, there’s plenty of timely, relevant content that could be explored with some pretty huge events taking place right now. Talking about plays from eight years ago with some kind of revisionist history angle is a strange decision that shows Undisputed and Skip Bayless might just be giving up in real time.