Jeff Chiu/AP
NBA announcer Mike Breen has finally opened up after losing both of his broadcast partners amid ESPN’s latest round of layoffs.
Breen — together with Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy — led ESPN’s top NBA broadcast team. In late June, it was revealed that Van Gundy was let go. Then, on Monday, it was reported that Jackson had suffered the same fate.
Now, only Breen remains. According to New York Post reporter Andrew Marchand, the network is expected to fill those vacant spots with ESPN analyst Doris Burke and NBA coach Doc Rivers.
Speaking to the New York Post, Breen said he was “stunned and disappointed” by the news.
“It’s sad because we really thought we had something special and that’s going to be the thought going forward is that we were able to do it a lot longer than anybody ever did,” Breen said. “It’s something we’ll all treasure, but we just wish it was a little bit longer.
“You don’t expect it, because it was such a great team and to have it completely broken up was a surprise.”
Van Gundy and Jackson were two of around twenty on-air personalities the network laid off as part of a drastic cost-cutting measure by Disney.
As Marchand noted, the three have known one another since the 1990s when Breen was the radio voice for the New York Knicks, Van Gundy was an assistant coach on the team, and Jackson was their point guard.
“They were the dream partners,” Breen continued. “All the accomplishments were because of what we did together. I really do feel personally any success I had was because I had those two guys next to me. They just provided everything you would want in analysts. They’re smart. They’re funny. They’re knowledgeable about their sport. They’re opinionated. They love their sport, but are not afraid to criticize. They just had a little bit of everything.
“And we came off a Finals that we were so proud of. It was another Finals together and it was really a great story of Denver winning for the first time and we were on a high after it was all done, so to come to grips with that was our final telecast is hard.”