NBA tried to engage fans with H-O-R-S-E tournament. The reviews were H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E
For a split second, as the pixelated squares fell into place to form an actual picture, fans watching ESPN’S H-O-R-S-E tournament could tell that former NBA great Paul Pierce’s personal basketball court in the hills of Los Angeles donned a giant Boston Celtics logo.
And then suddenly the picture froze, and fans tuning in to watch Pierce virtually take on (and get squashed by) Zach LaVine in a tournament thrown together by ESPN amid the COVID-19 pandemic went back to being disappointed with the quality of the footage ... among other glaring issues.
Sure, it seemed like a good idea to have NBA and WNBA players show off their quarantine basketball skill sets for sports-deprived fans, but no one realized how boring — and weirdly awkward — it would be.
Players’ streaming capabilities appeared to be severely handicapped during the slow-moving, two-hour event on Sunday and the audience hilariously took notice.
No one, including ESPN, could have guessed that the players’ streams would look like they were trying to video chat from a college dorm room in 1999. As a result, players interactions floundered aimlessly as the stream would cut in and out, causing the athletes to either talk over each other or look like a doe-in-headlights while waiting for their competition to answer a question they asked five minutes before.
Oh, and the competition stunk.
“It didn’t seem like the players put much thought or practice into their shots before the cameras turned on,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Dan Gartland. “They could have taken the past couple of days to come up with some unique trick shots to do, but for the most part they kept it simple.”
Sure, we got to see Chicago Sky guard Allie Quigley challenge — and demolish — Oklahoma City Thunder guard Chris Paul with a bank shot while seated on the ground, but a majority of the players’ shots were lacking creativity, which made viewers fall asleep with their eyes open.
Fortunately, the saving grace in all of this appeared in the form of savage Twitter jokes.
You know it’s bad when even NBA players, including New Orleans Pelicans guard J.J. Redick, tune in and then quickly exit the conversation.
If you’re a glutton for punishment, or if you’re just that desperate for sports action, the semifinals and championship H-O-R-S-E game will be aired on ESPN at 9 p.m. ET Thursday.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 9:56 AM with the headline "NBA tried to engage fans with H-O-R-S-E tournament. The reviews were H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E."