Out for a Swin

Swin Cash has a cool name, but she needs to focus a little bit more on other people's names. Recently, on an "NBA Fastbreak" broadcast on ESPN (I believe it was on Monday, March 19th), Cash was talking about the Golden State Warriors and started mentioned that along with Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington and Baron Davis, they also have Richard Jefferson. Yep. She said "Richard Jefferson." Anyone with any interest in the NBA knows that Richard Jefferson does not play for the Golden State Warriors. He's a Net. Cash was referring to former Michigan State Spartan Jason Richardson.

Big mistake? Maybe not. Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue. But, why did neither she nor the host catch the mistake? There are two main possibilities:
(a) they didn't realize there was a mistake made or
(b) they figured the listeners wouldn't care, so they didn't want to correct the mistake

I have a problem either way. Looking at (a), the more straightforward of the two, if the talent on an ESPN NBA program don't have a good knowledge of the NBA, there is something very wrong with that. If it was (b), then that is just one more instance of style trumping substance. Why pair Stuart Scott with Kenny Mayne? It's not for the great sports commentary they provide. Personally, I don't find them entertaining, but I know a lot of people do. But, as the guy says on the commercial for ESPN news (I'm paraphrasing ... unless I get lucky and get it exactly right) "Now I know sports ... or better yet, now I sound like I know sports."

Knowing sports should be more important to ESPN than sounding like you know sports. Unfortunately, substance just isn't as important as style these days.