And now … Welcome to The Lowe Post! Wait, it's not going by that moniker anymore? Oh well, it's just great to have a true ball lover with a large following back in the NBA sphere.
Zach Lowe and ESPN parted ways in September 2024. Unfortunately for the good guys, that was right before the NBA season began. Lowe was in his cave, not responding to the constant Lowe-Signal that ran rampant on Twitter. He is revered for his forward-thinking writing style, his eye test plus analytics, and his non-trolling basketball approach. The game missed those qualities.
It was all for the love of the game with Lowe— No hot takes to go viral; if he said it, he meant it. This approach is the antithesis of what we see daily from mainstream media. The rise of debate shows shifted the conversation from hoops to drama and narratives. Lowe sometimes delved into the latter, but that was never his main intent.
Bill Simmons' The Ringer stepped up and helped save the basketball community, announcing Lowe has returned to the space under their umbrella. This announcement is a breath of fresh air as we head towards the playoffs. It's a win for the good guys if you will.
Subscribe to The Whiteboard, FanSided’s daily email newsletter on everything basketball. If you like The Whiteboard, share it with a friend! If you don’t like it, share it with an enemy!
Zach Lowe returning to mainstream media can shift the culture
ESPN parting ways with Lowe emphasized how important the E was to them. Entertainment. Lowe was entertaining to ball lovers. How he'd write or talk about random intricacies in a ball game displayed his acute eye for the game.
I appreciate that, but a segment of fans want the GOAT debate.
They want to hear Kendrick Perkins say something that contradicts what he said in the last segment.
They want the Stephen A. versus LeBron rift.
Lowe never dove into those waters. Some of those characters were on his ESPN podcast, which clearly came from up top. You'd hear Lowe make witty remarks about these arranged podcast marriages.
He won't have to do that at The Ringer. One of the forefathers of keeping NBA talk basketball-based will get to spread his wings even further than he could at ESPN. Lowe isn't the only ball lover spreading the word of hoops.
Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones Jr. host "The Dunkers Spot."— arguably the most educational hoops podcast in the world. If you want to learn about sets, team trends, player tendencies, and league-wide analysis, that is the place for you. More good guys.
"Numbers on the Board" is an ESPN product, but it's not the cliche debate format. It's four friends talking ball like you'd do in the barbershop.
Kenny Beecham is a super Bulls fan but offers unbiased analytic-eye test coverage. I've never seen anybody know more colleges players went to than Pierre Andresen. He's also a hoops encyclopedia who loves basketball. Derrick Miller and Mike Heard add NBA knowledge and comedic relief to the show.
It's a four-man weave that wouldn't be the same without any of the four. Their rise in popularity can help shape the minds of young NBA fans. It can help escape the Skip Bayless-type content that runs rampant these days.
"Mind the Game," featuring LeBron James and other high-IQ players (Steve Nash this time), is another step in the right direction. It's a show that highlights actual basketball. It displays how these super-brain hoop geniuses process everything on the floor. That's good news.
Zach Lowe's return is more good news. It's not the "Lowe Post" anymore, but we have the "Zach Lowe Show." He's already amassed a massive NBA platform. Some on the other side say, "Real hoops talk doesn't generate views," but when Lowe left his cave during the post-trade-Luka fiasco, he garnered 1M views in a day. It's a market here for people who want to dive into the X's and O's; Lowe's return will prove that.