Stephen A. Smith may be the face of ESPN, but Malika Andrews is the future. Andrews, 26, has been with the network since 2018, growing in influence and fame in the years since her arrival.
After working as an online writer, she debuted as ESPN’s youngest sideline reporter during the 2020 NBA Bubble.
Now, according to ESPN, she will be getting her own show, ‘NBA Today,’ which will feature a panel of the network’s most prestigious NBA journalists.
Andrews will be joined by ESPN NBA analysts Kendrick Perkins, Chiney Ogwumike, Vince Carter and ESPN Senior Writer Zach Lowe to form the NBA Today panel. Additionally, ESPN Senior NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski and ESPN NBA Insider and Senior Writer Ramona Shelburne will be among several top ESPN NBA reporters contributing updates from around the league.
The show will replace ‘The Jump,’ a now-expired program led by Rachel Nichols. No doubt, the move is a direct response to the controversy that got exposed this past summer, involving a recording of Nichols bashing the network for their decision to have Andrews take her place in the 2020 Finals.
Late Tuesday night, an anonymous party sent a Deadspin reporter four videos, which appeared to be a cell phone recording of a video feed, that shows ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, host of the afternoon NBA show The Jump, in a phone conversation with an unidentified man about personnel matters at the network.
Nichols (whose face never appears on camera) and the other party to the call discuss Nichols’ career, ESPN staff, and the World Wide Leader’s decision about who will host the network’s coverage of the NBA Finals. In light of privacy concerns and our being unable to view the entirety of the conversation recorded, we have chosen not to detail the conversation or post the video of the call. Sources have told Deadspin that the entire video of Nichols’ conversation was 30 minutes long. Deadspin received about four minutes of edited footage. It is also worth noting that the videos were sent to Deadspin as an attempt to discredit Nichols’ job status within ESPN, and with the public at large, with the anonymous source texting our reporter that the videos would “expose” Nichols as a “back-stabber” and a phony ally.
ESPN has pretty much removed Nichols from the public eye, drawing some questions on what could be next for her career.
In the meantime, the network has gone all-in on Andrews, and the majority of fans are fully supporting it.
