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🏈 The story of Kyle Shanahan’s car accident, and Adam Schefter’s true role in the reporting of it, is only getting weirder and weirder. Schefter deferred when asked by ESPN Radio about how the 49ers kept the story silent for so long. Then, the 49ers coach admitted that he was at fault for the crash when police documents indicated the contrary. It leaves significantly more questions about why Schefter and ESPN seemingly coordinated the news break with the 49ers, and why ESPN’s original story failed to mention that Shanahan was distracted by his cell phone, causing the accident.

🏈 A trio of former Carolina Panthers stars is trending up in the industry. Steve Smith is set to get an expanded role at ESPN as part of the new-look team alongside NFL Network. And Luke Kuechly will step into the broadcast booth as a Netflix lead analyst for their game coverage this year. Adam Thielen spent just two years with the Panthers after a decorated career with the Vikings, but impressed in his own ESPN cameo as well.

🏒 Eddie Olczyk is stepping back from calling Seattle Kraken games to focus on his national television schedule and spend more time with his family.

⚽ FIFA could actually sell a stake in the World Cup to private equity, namely Josh Kushner, as part of a new for-profit endeavor that would see Gianni Infantino named as commissioner. Soccer was fun while it lasted.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

It may not have needed a Thanos finger snap, but for the first time in what feels like ages, the NBA appears to have some proper geographical balance.

Ever since Michael Jordan’s last championship with the Chicago Bulls, the Western Conference has totally dominated the NBA landscape. Brad Botkin of CBS Sports laid out just how wide and deep the scales have been tilted towards the Pacific since 2000, and the numbers are staggering.

The Western Conference has won 17 NBA titles compared to 10 for the Eastern Conference.

The Western Conference has nearly doubled the Eastern Conference in 50-win teams by a 131-73 margin.

The Western Conference also more than doubled the Eastern Conference in All-NBA First Team players (91-44) and MVP awards (18-9).

But now, for the first time since The Truman Show ruled the box office, the NBA’s geographic center is starting to shift back East of the Mississippi.

Last season did see the West outnumber the East in 50-win teams once again. However, the Eastern Conference had 10 teams with winning records, while the Western Conference had 9.

LeBron James signing with the Philadelphia 76ers brings the biggest star in the league back to the Eastern Conference for the first time since 2018, when he was with the Cavaliers. The defending champions are the New York Knicks. Giannis Antetokounmpo stayed in the East, moving to Miami. The Detroit Pistons are coming off a 60-win season. And five out of the top seven teams listed as favorites to win the title are all from the East (Philly, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Toronto).

Of course, the top two teams, as co-favorites, are the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

So why does this matter from a sports media perspective?

For a generation, fans have been used to the best NBA basketball being played on the West Coast or in small mid-South markets like San Antonio and Oklahoma City. With most regular-season Western Conference games starting at 10 p.m. ET or 10:30 p.m. ET, this means that many of the league’s best teams and biggest stars were simply inaccessible to the vast majority of the American television audience.

Yes, the Lakers will always be a great television draw. But LeBron James playing in LA for the last decade has left the Eastern Conference and primetime television windows looking awfully bare. No offense to any of these players, but Bradley Beal, DeMar DeRozan, Trae Young, and Kemba Walker have all been All-Star starters since LeBron was last playing in the East. None of those players are consistently moving the needle.

This year, that dynamic is going to be flipped on its head. The East now represents a fantastic array of rivalries, markets, matchups, and stars that are a dream come true for the league’s television partners.

Yes, it’s obvious that the NBA will want to maximize national television exposure for the Sixers and Knicks. But Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Miami will all be heavily featured on NBC, ESPN, and Amazon. So too will Detroit and Cleveland. And don’t lose sight of Orlando and Toronto’s potential. If Chicago were somehow relevant again, Adam Silver probably wouldn’t be able to contain himself with glee.

And let’s not kid ourselves, the NBA featured the Knicks ad nauseum on national television for years, in spite of whether they were good or not. Now they are one of the most popular teams in sports! That’s a massive win for the league.

And this balance finally evening out comes at a perfect time with the NBA getting more national broadcast television exposure than ever before. We may have already seen the benefits of that with Spurs-Thunder getting such high ratings on NBC despite being small-market, Western Conference teams. NBC, ESPN, and Amazon have to be chomping at the bit to get any combination of 76ers, Knicks, Thunder, and Spurs games.

We know how much big markets help every professional sports league not named the NFL. It’s just a fact of life. It’s impossible to truly know whether NBA ratings would have been higher over the years had some of the big-market Eastern Conference teams like New York, Philly, and Chicago been in contention for multiple championships. But odds are Adam Silver and company are secretly happy, feeling like the whole country can be engaged in the NBA instead of feeling like we are watching the Varsity and JV conferences.

Taking Dan Orlovsky’s advice on pedicures sounds like it’d be about as effective as taking Steve Bartman’s advice on catching a foul ball.

Boomer Esiason has a price if he’s going to help Chris “Mad Dog” Russo out with his weekly NFL picks. The “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase would be so proud.

Speaking of Russo, former San Francisco Giants star and new Baseball Hall of Famer Jeff Kent showed the Mad Dog a lot of love for all of his years of steadfast support for his candidacy.

Michael Wilbon… not a fan of the Savannah Bananas!

“You have an incident like this that doesn't have obviously the kind of shame that would end someone like Mark Sanchez's career, but it has a shame involved that if you were looking for a reason to get rid of somebody, this kind of publicity is reason enough.” - Dan Le Batard is wondering if Tony Romo’s arrest is enough to get CBS to think about moving on from their highly-paid lead analyst. So far, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

"He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on. I'm sorry. This is such a staggering amount of ineptitude in the job he's had for Bill Belichick.” - Bruce Feldman did not hold back in burying Michael Lombardi with the UNC GM’s future in limbo.

"… In his real life, and especially New Orleans, that's a different kind of community. It's like real close-knit, everybody family. And they all coming up to him because he's on ESPN. 'Thank you for representing us. Thank you for speaking out for us. We love you out there representing us.' And then you feel like you let them down because you're not there anymore.” - Jemele Hill shared why she believed Ryan Clark was so emotional after being let go by ESPN.

"So, I mean, I probably wouldn't do this right here, but I mean, this is part of his lane. He's into, what's the word, clicks, likes, you know, that's his thing." - LeSean McCoy, on the other hand, was much more skeptical of Clark’s viral reaction.

Speaking of the NBA and its newfound balance, LeBron’s decision to join the Sixers finally opens the door to exploring the possible permutations the league will feature for its Christmas Day showcase. Here’s our best guess at what the five-game slate might look like later this year.

12 p.m. ET - Detroit Pistons vs. Cleveland Cavaliers

The Central Division rivals met in last year's postseason when the Cavaliers upset the Pistons, who had finished the regular season as the top seed in the Eastern Conference. The NBA and ESPN have a lot of options to play with when it comes to teams that could and should be featured on Christmas Day. But it feels like the East's top seed and last year's conference finalists should find a way to get a showcase matchup. And it's a deserving reward for the Pistons, who last played on Christmas Day all the way back in 2005.

2:30 p.m. ET - Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat

These two teams should be Eastern Conference contenders and have a long history of playoff rivalries to draw on. While Boston traded away Jaylen Brown and Miami failed to land LeBron James, there's still plenty of star power available here with a healthy Jayson Tatum and Giannis Antetokounmpo in his first season in Miami. We don't know exactly how these new-look teams will fare in the 2026-2027 season, but they feature big stars, markets, and brands that will be heavily featured throughout the campaign.

5 p.m. ET - New York Knicks vs. Philadelphia 76ers

The defending NBA champions against LeBron James and his new team in a quest to win one final ring? It's the obvious choice for the one matchup fans would want to see. Yes, you could pair LeBron with any number of possible choices, including his former stops in Cleveland, Miami, or Los Angeles. But the juice that comes from the league's biggest draw as a player (James) against its biggest draw as a team (Knicks) is too good an opportunity to pass up. The Knicks broke all kinds of modern-day NBA ratings records on the way to their first title in over 50 years, and the league should give them the best possible Christmas Day matchup to maximize viewership against the NFL. Add in the fact that Knicks-Sixers is also the most historically frequent Christmas Day game at 13 contests between the pair, and this should be a lock.

8 p.m. ET - Oklahoma City Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs

If a Knicks-Sixers matchup is 1A for the NBA on Christmas Day lineup, then this has to be 1B. The epic seven-game Western Conference Finals series between these two powerhouse teams was some of the best basketball that the NBA has seen in years. And viewers responded to Victor Wembanyama potentially becoming the league's new face as he went up against his arch-rivals and the 2025 NBA champions in Oklahoma City. Forget 2026, this should be a Christmas Day showcase for multiple years to come.

10:30 p.m. ET - Los Angeles Lakers vs Golden State Warriors

There are plenty of teams in the Western Conference who deserve a Christmas Day game. The Rockets, Mavericks, Timberwolves, and Nuggets were all featured in last year's slate. But when it comes to who the NBA will select to play on Christmas for the nightcap, look no further than the Los Angeles Lakers and Steph Curry's Golden State Warriors. The two teams have featured on 12 of the last 13 Christmas Days, and that streak should continue in 2026.