Jon Barry, not Mark Jackson, will be paired with Mike Breen this Sunday on ABC’s main NBA game. In fact, Mark Jackson will not have a role in any NBA game televised by ABC or ESPN this week.
This, coming two weeks after Barry replaced Jackson on GMC NBA Countdown. This Sunday, ABC will bring in Kiki Vandeweghe to join Dan Patrick and Michael Wilbon.
All of which begs the question: what exactly is ABC doing? Jackson was announced as ABC’s version of Joe Buck; he would be the relative ‘main man’ of the pregame show and then hop into the booth with Mike Breen. Now, already, ABC is ready to make a change? Why did the network replace Hubie Brown in the first place? And if Jackson isn’t going to be working this Sunday, why not move Brown into the booth instead of Jon Barry?
There may be a reasonable explanation for this. Analysts miss games all the time — Doug Collins missed Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals because of his daughter’s graduation. Still, the press release did not contain any explanation, and considering the fact that Jackson was seemingly booted off the pregame show on Feb. 11, this looks like it may be the start of yet another reshuffling at ABC.
UPDATE: According to commenter Chief, Mark Jackson explained on the Dan Patrick Show that he is contractually obligated to work the New Jersey Nets/New York Knicks game on the YES Network that night at 6:00.
