ESPN has made a shakeup to its top NBA broadcast team.
Analyst Doris Burke has been demoted from the network’s No. 1 team, the same outfit that covers the NBA Finals, and has been replaced by Tim Legler, the outlet announced on Thursday, Aug. 28.
The Athletic first reported the news.
Legler will join play-by-play veteran Mike Breen and fellow analyst Richard Jefferson, who were Burke’s partners on the broadcast in the previous two NBA Finals. Along with reporter Lisa Salters, Legler will call the NBA Finals on ABC, the Conference Finals, high-profile first- and second-round games during the NBA Playoffs, a Christmas Day game and NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC.
Legler joined ESPN in 2000 and has been a game analyst on the network and on ESPN Radio and a frequent contributor to marquee programming like SportsCenter. Legler, 58, played 10 seasons in the NBA, from 1989-2000.
ESPN also signed Jefferson to a new, multi-year agreement.
What is Doris Burke’s role at ESPN?
ESPN has signed Burke to multi-year extension, and she will continue to call high-profile NBA games on ESPN and ABC, including the NBA Sunday Showcase series. Burke will regularly work alongside play-by-play broadcaster Dave Pasch.
Burke, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, had been ESPN’s lead analyst and had covered two consecutive NBA Finals. In 2024 she became the first woman to be a broadcast analyst for a major U.S. men’s sports championship event. Four years earlier, during the NBA Finals held in Orlando against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burke served as an analyst on ESPN radio, becoming the first woman to handle analyst duties during an NBA Finals on any platform.
When the network appointed Burke as a national game analyst for the 2017-18 season, she set another milestone, becoming the first woman to hold that role.
Burke, who also covered men’s and women’s college basketball and the WNBA, has covered basketball for the network since 1991.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.