Sparks’ Lexie Brown subs in as emergency broadcaster to cover her own team

LOS ANGELES — Lexi Brown came off the bench to help the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday night, and it had nothing to do with the action on the actual basketball court.

The Sparks guard joined the Spectrum Sports broadcast team as a fill-in TV analyst to cover her team’s game against the visiting Minnesota Lynx. Brown has been out indefinitely since late June due to Crohn’s.

“It was kind of crazy,” Brown said after the game, which the Lynx won, 82-67. “Those are still my teammates, so like you cannot really be super critical of them. There are plays that are made that you can like, react to and stuff like that.

“But I was trying to just be as uplifting as possible. I see all the work they put in, you know, I’m in the locker room, I’m in these huddles, I’m with them every day. So I just want to be able to paint them in a positive light and show our fans that it’s going to be a process and it’s going to be hard at times they are really doing the best that they can.”

Brown was asked to be on the broadcast as an emergency fill-in. She was initially hesitant because she didn’t know if she could speak without bias when it came to covering her own squad. Once she said yes, she knew exactly what she was going to do once the mic was hot.

“That was a very one-sided telecast on my part and I think that should be expected from a player,” Brown said. “But it’s on the Sparks network, like if it’s on an ESPN or CBS or something like that obviously you have to be a little bit more unbiased. But I was like, ‘This is the perfect time for me to just show my girls some love.’”

Rahshaun Haylock, who does play-by-play for the Sparks, was pleasantly surprised with how his substitute broadcast partner did in her first broadcast.

“I told her on the broadcast, it’d be the equivalent to her scoring a 40 piece in her debut,” Haylock said. “She was really that good.”

This wasn’t Brown’s first time in the sports media space. She has been in-studio as an analyst with the ACC Network and has been on podcasts such as former NBA player Gilbert Arenas’ “Gil’s Arena.”

While Brown believes she has a future within sports media after her WNBA career, she isn’t sure if it will be on the sideline of games.

“I’m still trying to figure out if I like that, you know, play-by-play. It’s kind of hard, but I’ve always thought it was hard, which is why I’ve never done it before,” Brown said.

“I really like being in the studio doing analysis. So maybe this offseason I’ll dabble in maybe some college games, see how I like it.”