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Malika Andrews Flubbed a Draft Pick’s Name in Hilarious Fashion on ABC

Stephen Douglas

Cedric Coward and Adam Silver at the NBA Draft.
Cedric Coward and Adam Silver at the NBA Draft. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images
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The Portland Trail Blazers selected Cedric Coward with the No. 11 pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

Coward averaged 17.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.7 blocks for Washington State last season. Having started his college basketball career with D-III Willamette, he's one of the cooler stories in the lottery this year.

And he is not a nationally syndicated sports talk radio host, despite what ESPN's Malika Andrews said when Coward was drafted.

"So the Portland Trailblazers select Colin Cowherd here," said Andrews on the ABC broadcast of the draft.

This is one of the funnier slips of the tongue you'll ever hear during a professional sports draft. Andrews didn't butcher the name. She simply replaced it with a different one.

Cowherd quickly jumped on an image generator and created a picture of himself in a Portland uniform, which he promptly posted on X.

As noted by Cowherd in his tweet, the Blazers traded the rights to Coward to the Memphis Grizzlies.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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