Malika Andrews continues to be the main face of NBA studio national coverage at ESPN hosting NBA Today and NBA Countdown. She’s also one of the youngest sideline reporters for the network covering basketball.

Covering a sport at a national level in studio has its perks. But there’s a different connection you get when you’re on the beat, covering a team each game, each practice and everything in between.

Andrews said being part of the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA title in 2021 was a career highlight, and the relationships she had as a beat reporter made it that much better.

“The Milwaukee Bucks doing the trophy ceremony in 2021 was a career highlight for me really,” Andrews said on 06010 The ESPN Communications Podcast. “I started my career with ESPN as a beat reporter based in the Midwest, and I loved covering the Bucks. At the time, Giannis [Antetokounmpo] was still very much—it was the year he won his first MVP, so there wasn’t the same attention that was on them now, so I got to really know that team with their guards down.”

Now Antetokounmpo teases Andrews about how she went from wearing sweats and a ball cap on the beat to now wearing the television garb. But Andrews said when she’s able to do shows on the road, you’re able to feel the essence of what makes basketball so great.

“When you’re sitting in studio, you’re not thinking about the hundreds of thousands, millions of people that you’re talking to. But when you’re standing in the middle of an arena where there was security that didn’t go the way it was planned so the fans actually poured on to the court for that particular ceremony, you actually see the people that you are talking to.”

ESPN #NBA host @malika_andrews joined the latest edition of ‘06010’ the ESPN Comms pod@AlexFeuz spoke with Andrews about hosting differences between ‘NBA Today’ & ‘NBA Countdown,’ her @NABJ involvement, lessons from her time as a beat reporter & more

🎧 https://t.co/VwJu6jet7V pic.twitter.com/P3LhOfbQnC

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 12, 2024

Andrews became ESPN’s youngest sideline reporter for a broadcast during the 2020 NBA Bubble of all places. During a time where the world was on a lockdown and there were more questions than answers. Beyond the COVID-19 virus there were more pressing issues in the world with racial injustice and protests.

It was also a time for the first of many things in her career.

“It was such a whirlwind,” Andrews said. “Now it’s something I reflect on as being the catalyst to launch my television career. But at the time, it really felt like a responsibility because the whole world had stopped and everyone was sort of watching what was happening in Orlando.

“I learned a lot … it was the first time I ever did NBA sidelines, it was the first time the television reporting that I did, and one of the things that I took from the bubble that was the most special to me was the relationship with my producer, Malinda Adams, who was there with me. We just became two peas in a pod, she is just so fantastic — there’s no one else for 107 days that I think I could have had that type of working relationship with.”

[06010 The ESPN Communications Podcast]