CJ McCollum’s day job still involves navigating NBA backcourts, but Prime Video has found a moonlighting assignment for his journalism degree.
Prime Video announced Thursday that the Atlanta Hawks guard will join NBA on Prime as a player contributor, making select appearances across the streamer’s studio programming throughout the 2026-27 season. His debut comes Friday on NBA Nightcap, the hourlong postgame show capping an Emirates NBA Cup doubleheader that pairs the Knicks and Pacers at 7 p.m. ET with the Warriors and Spurs at 9:30 p.m. ET.
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“My degree was in journalism, and I have been lucky to have hands-on media experience throughout my NBA career,” McCollum said in the release. “So much has changed about how fans experience the game, and I’m excited to join Prime Video to share something only a player can: what’s really going on in the locker room, on the floor, and in the league right now. I’m still a player first, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Amazon entered its maiden NBA season with a nearly identical arrangement, installing Kyle Lowry as its inaugural active-player contributor as the 76ers guard began his 20th NBA season and offering him an intermittent slate of studio appearances along with the promise of expanded responsibilities down the line. Amazon made good on that pledge, as Lowry earned a more prominent seat at the desk for select Play-In and playoff broadcasts in the spring, and in July, he signed a ceremonial one-day contract with the Raptors to formally retire after 20 seasons, and Amazon elevated him to a regular role on its studio show.
Amazon carried the concept over to the women’s game this spring, adding Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum as a player contributor for the inaugural season of its 11-year WNBA agreement.
As for McCollum, the Hawks guard is in his 14th NBA season, but the groundwork for his eventual sports media career was laid in his third. During his breakout 2015-16 campaign in Portland, he launched C.J.’s Press Pass to mentor aspiring reporters at nearby Madison High School, rewarding the students with press credentials to cover an NBA game. Six years later, the then-Pelicans guard joined ESPN as a multi-platform analyst under an expansive agreement that placed him on NBA Countdown, Get Up, and First Take, as well as on Summer League telecasts as a game analyst, and gave him his own podcast under the ESPN banner.
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Last October, Charles Barkley used part of Inside the NBA’s debut on ESPN to plead for someone to rescue McCollum from the Wizards. Thirteen months later, McCollum has escaped Washington, steered Atlanta to a playoff win at Madison Square Garden, and joined the studio analysts who once lamented his fate.
The post CJ McCollum joins NBA on Prime as a player contributor appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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