DORIS BURKE ADDS NOTHING — I SAID, NOTHING — TO THE NBA’S NO. 1 TEAM

I am almost as woke as anyone, and candid, but adding Burke to the top broadcasting team in the No. 2 sport adds no substance, no rationale and no crossfire to one of the major pitfalls of sports

     Would you like to know what Doris Burke means to the NBA’s No. 1 broadcast team? Nothing. And I mean, nothing. This is not only a female and a first in major-league professional sports, but I can’t tell you a damn thing she’s ever said that has staggered me, wonderstruck me or dumbfounded me.

     Yet there she is, beside Mike Breen and Doc Rivers on ESPN’s lead crew, and if Burke ever makes one crossover comment, I’ll be certain to let you know. Until then, we are left to wonder what became of Jeff Van Gundy — mainly one of the better all-time announcers — and we’ll be sure what to do when Breen shuts up as the only lead.

     Turn the channel. Because this does not make the league better than, in due time, when commissioner Adam Silver expects $70 billion for what his partners bring in at $24 billion. This makes ESPN worse. This makes ESPN god-awful. The advertisers will pay up because that’s what they do, but that doesn’t mean the broadcasts will be anywhere near better. Breen will be good. Rivers will be average until he’s called back to coach the Los Angeles Clippers for the second time.

     And Burke will be awful.

     This is supposed to be a giant happening in 2023. There should be one woman in line, but all along, that has been Burke and no one else. In May, I watched her try a take on Ja Morant and waited for a sterling moratorium about his future. Instead, she gave him a break. So this is yet another entitlement, a way to give people a break while the rest of us — how many are left? — bring together the gunfire of what keeps this man’s shaky career alive.

     I cannot tell you how Rivers will do in TV for the first time in 20 years. I cannot imagine what Breen has in store. But I do know this.

     Doris Burke belongs somewhere else. Is it too late?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.