After confirming last Friday that he has retired as a player, longtime NBA swingman Andre Iguodala has been named one of ESPN’s new studio analysts for the coming season, per Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports (Twitter link).
According to McCarthy, former Knicks general manager Scott Perry, veteran NBA guard Austin Rivers, former Spurs assistant and current Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, and Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White are also joining ESPN as studio analysts. Rivers is still just 31 years old and has given no indication that he intends to retire as a player, so presumably his ESPN gig won’t stand in the way if he gets an opportunity to join a team at some point this season.
In related news, former ESPN analyst Vince Carter will appear on Nets broadcasts on the YES Network in a part-time role this season, reports Andrew Marchand of The New York Post. Carter was part of the ESPN summer layoffs that also affected Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, among others.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- The NBA announced on Tuesday that 125 international players are on rosters to open the 2023/24 regular season. That’s a new record, as are the numbers of Canadians (26) and Frenchmen (14) in the league. All 30 rosters feature at least one international player, and 40 non-U.S. countries and territories represented.
- Although the 2023/24 regular season hasn’t quite tipped off yet, the league has already informed teams of its regular season start and end dates for the 2024/25 campaign, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Next season will begin on October 22, 2024 and wrap up on April 13, 2025.
- Marc Stein clarifies in his latest Substack article that the new 65-game minimum for end-of-season awards only applies to MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA, and All-Defense. That means a player wouldn’t necessarily have to play 65 games to win Sixth Man of the Year or Rookie of the Year, or to be named to an All-Rookie team.
- Having not claimed a spot on an NBA roster to open the season, will free agent guard Kendrick Nunn head overseas to continue his playing career? Alessandro Maggi of Sportando rounds up the latest rumors linking Nunn to European teams.
Will Nunn get a NBA contract or will he get none. He could be a scoring PG off the bench.
marc stein added the wembanyama clause
It’s been painful watching espns demise unfold over the last qrter century
Jj redick is going to be the most annoying of them all this year with his increased platform
Just not having to hear him ramble is worth the price of league pass moving forward
ESPN had a massive upgrade this off season…
JVG had his moments but all too often turned into an old man yelling from his porch…
Add in Mark Jackson and they were all too often complaining about something instead of doing their job and therefore miss multiple calls until they made their little point…
Just getting rid of those 2 clowns is a massive upgrade…
I’ll go from avoiding ESPN games until the playoffs to happily watching more ESPN this season…
Bucks could use rivers