Tony Parker won four NBA championships with the San Antonio Spurs alongside Tim Duncan, Manu Ginóbili, and Gregg Popovich. Parker is a Hall of Fame inductee and one of the defining point guards of the ‘00s. There are a million images of Parker celebrating after championships, yet ESPN and ABC chose to run a photo that was clearly doctored with AI during Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals.
ESPN’s AI Tony Parker image was unsettling and unnecessary during NBA Finals
Thumbs down for this weird AI Tony Parker image shown during the NBA Finals.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
ESPN showed this image as it cut to commercial. It’s supposed to be Tony Parker, but fans quickly pointed out that it looks nothing like him.
What’s so weird about this is this is a famous photo of Parker, the network just chose to use AI to enhance his facial features. In doing so, it completely distorted his face and made him look like an entirely different person.
Here’s the original image of Parker that ABC/ESPN chose to alter. Was it really worth it just to put a bigger smile on his face?
AI Tony Parker just adds insult to injury to a rough Game 1 loss for the Spurs that showed some real problems they have to overcome in this series. This is going to be such a great NBA Finals with so much history on both sides. Please don’t use AI to alter our perception of reality as we watch it.
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