Richard Jefferson was one of the ESPN crew members previewing the New York Knicks’ Wednesday night game at American Airlines Center in Dallas against the Mavericks. Usually, pundits go viral before the jump for their bizarre predictions. However, in Jefferson’s case, he was heavily trolled by Knicks fans for being unprepared for the game he was calling.
Advertisement
About 14 minutes before the game, the ESPN analyst named a few players that he wanted to look out for in the contest. The Dereck Lively II- Isaiah Hartenstein matchup was one such duel that he highlighted. “I wanna see Lively, I wanna see Hartenstein. These are gonna be those matchups that you get to see,” RJ said.
“I wanna see Hartenstein”
–– Richard Jefferson before Knicks game pic.twitter.com/DxnWdoGLSz
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) November 28, 2024
A matchup between Hartenstein and Lively II will be entertaining no doubt, but unfortunately, much to Jefferson’s chagrin, he soon found out that Hartenstein was not a member of the Knicks anymore. The 26-year-old had been traded to the OKC Thunder this summer.
Jefferson tried saving face when Malika Andrews corrected him by claiming that he was talking about the Thunder game, which is next on the schedule. But social media users weren’t too happy about the blunder.
“This is why Knicks fans don’t watch ESPN unless they have no choice,” one fan wrote.
This is why Knicks fans don’t watch ESPN unless they have no choice
— Overinvested Knicks Fan (@Bro___Smith) November 28, 2024
“The entire job is simply watching basketball,” another X user commented. “These clowns get paid all that $ and don’t even know whose on what teams. Shameful behavior,” one of the more harsher comments read.
The entire job is simply watching basketball.
— TheDork (@CraigDworkin) November 28, 2024
Such type of a mistake is embarrassing for an analyst as experienced as Jefferson. However, to cut Jefferson some slack, Hartenstein was going to be part of another ESPN-broadcasted game later in the day.
He would be suiting up for the Oklahoma City Thunder-Golden State Warriors clash at Chase Center. So he might have mixed it up. Or he may have just forgot that the former Villanova star was traded this summer.
In any case, we just learned that fans are not kind to those who cover basketball for a living and still make mistakes.
