Mad Dog Russo Floats Wild Conspiracy Theory About Jeff Van Gundy’s Firing

ESPN

Of the many on-air talents that were laid off by ESPN this week, one of the most surprising was former NBA head coach Jeff Van Gundy, who had been with the network since 2007 and was their lead NBA in-game analyst as he would call the NBA Finals alongside Mike Breen and Mark Jackson.

Now, while the reason for Van Gundy’s firing likely has something to do with the size of his contract, current First Take human hot spring Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo has another theory entirely that involves the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver getting involved.

During a recent episode of his Sirius XM podcast, the 63-year-old New York City sports radio stalwart talked himself into

“Let me put it this way, I can’t fathom the idea that ESPN in these layoffs… would fire Jeff Van Gundy. You’re not going to convince me that ESPN (and Disney boss Bob Iger) woke up in the last two weeks, looked at the budget sheet, and said, ‘We gotta fire Van Gundy because we gotta save some money.’”

Russo’s theory seems to hinge on the fact that he finds it odd that the network didn’t also fire fellow NBA analyst Marc Jackson if they were truly concerned with cutting costs.

“Fire the both of them. Save real money, bring one guy in, and pay him half. If you really wanted to go out there and save money with your NBA crew, which you could’ve done is fired the both of them and just hired Doc Rivers and paid him half of what those two were making. You could’ve saved a fortune and done a two-man booth. You could’ve easily have done that.”

These points all lead Russo to the conclusion that the NBA asked ESPN to fire Van Gundy, their employee of over 15 years.

“That leads me to the conclusion that someone in the league office must’ve told ESPN, ‘I want Van Gundy out.’ We all know he’s biting. We all know he gets on the officials. We all know he doesn’t hold back with his NBA opinions. He tells you what he thinks, which is what a great broadcaster is supposed to do anyways. What is going on right now in the negotiation scenario? ESPN and NBC and TNT, what are they doing? They’re all negotiating with [Adam] Silver and the NBA.”

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Russo decided to uncork this conspiracy on Sirius Xm’s time as opposed to on ESPN’s airwaves during his usual Wednesday spot on First Take with Stephen A. Smith.