Mark Jackson Is Leaving ESPN, With Doc Rivers And Doris Burke Joining The New Lead Booth

Earlier this month, Chad Finn of the Boston Globe reported Doc Rivers and Doris Burke were likely to take over as ESPN’s top NBA broadcast analysts, joining Mike Breen in the lead booth after Jeff Van Gundy was among ESPN’s layoffs this summer.

Naturally that left Mark Jackson’s status with the network in question, as it would mean he was either being demoted to a secondary broadcast or would be leaving the network. On Monday morning, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post confirmed Rivers and Burke were ESPN’s selection to make up the lead broadcast team, and later in the day he brought word that Jackson was indeed leaving the network rather than falling back into being part of the B team — with a cacophony of “mama, there goes that man” quote tweets.

Where Jackson goes from here remains to be seen, as he’s been with ESPN for well over a decade — with a stint as coach of the Warriors in the middle. His desire to get another head coaching job has been well reported, but to this point he’s not found a second head coaching job. Van Gundy is expected to make his way back into coaching after being let go, and we’ll see if Jackson seeks out a high-level assistant role or if he just enjoys some time away from the game before making his next move.

With Burke moving up to the A team alongside Rivers, one would expect the new secondary booth (at least come playoff time) to be Mark Jones, JJ Redick, and Richard Jefferson, unless one or both of those end up in an NBA Countdown role instead.

UPDATE: Jackson confirmed ESPN had indeed let him go on Twitter on Monday night, saying his goodbyes to the network and his longtime colleagues.