Ex-NBA Star Stephen Jackson Defends ESPN’s Rachel Nichols Over Diversity Comments
After audio recordings of Rachel Nichols demeaning her ESPN colleague Maria Taylor were leaked, close friend of George Floyd and retired NBA star Stephen Jackson came to Nichols’ defense.
Last summer, Nichols left an ESPN camera running in her hotel room at the NBA bubble in Orlando. During a conversation with an advisor to LeBron James, Nichols, who is White, complained ESPN gave Taylor, who is Black, the NBA Finals hosting gig because of the company’s “crappy” track record with diversity.
“How mad were we?” Jackson said in a video showing support for Nichols. “When you know you deserve the job and they give it to a White person just because he’s White. We been dealing with that our whole life. And that pisses us off! We ain’t getting recorded. But we say sh*t too, behind closed doors.”
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Jackson hosts the popular All the Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes, but also occasionally contributes to ESPN’s The Jump, which featured Nichols as a permanent member of the show since 2016.
“I get it why Rachel is mad,” Jackson added. “Rachel ain’t never shown me any signs of being racist. I would be mad, too, if I worked my whole life for a job and they gonna give it to a white dude just cause Donald Trump in office.”
Deadspin announced last summer that they received audio from Nichols’ private conversation, but those clips were held for nearly a year until The New York Times released them Sunday. The audio was made public nearly two weeks before Taylor’s ESPN contract is set to expire, as both parties are reportedly remain millions of dollars apart.
Nichols issued a public apology to Taylor at the start of ESPN’s The Jump Monday afternoon, where she discussed not wanting to take away from the NBA Finals. On Tuesday, the Disney-owned sports media giant announced Nichols would be removed from her role as sideline reporter during the NBA Finals, to ensure she wouldn’t take away from the championship series.
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