It seems like ESPN wasn’t eager to hear some Thursday night thoughts from Bill Walton.
In a video tweeted by @ContextFreeCBB, the legendary retired basketball player and current commentator was working the Arizona/Stanford basketball game when something appeared to happen with his mic. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
Right as Walton said, “And if the Russians invade us tomorrow,” his mic appeared to go dead. Judge for yourself what happened in the video below.
— No Context College Basketball (@ContextFreeCBB) March 4, 2022
This is an incredibly strange situation for two reasons. First and foremost, Walton has never been one to hold back.
When he wants to say something, he says it. That’s just a fact. So, I find it very hard to believe that in the middle of a sentence about a potential war, he just stopped speaking.
That wouldn’t be very on-brand for him at all.
Secondly, this isn’t exactly the first time something like this has happened at ESPN. This past football season, ESPN appeared to cut to commercial right as David Letterman was about to tell a story about Roger Goodell.
For those of you who have never seen that clip, you can check it out below.
ESPN cut David Letterman’s Roger Goodell story off for commercial. Bummer. #ManningCast pic.twitter.com/N8NgoE0n2s
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 7, 2021
Putting our context clues together, it certainly seems like ESPN has some questions to answer. Did they cut Walton’s mic? If not, why did it appear to all of a sudden go dead? The people need to know!