NBA on NBC is once again the best NBA vehicle. Once upon a time, The NBA on NBC for the most part was the NBA. TNT then had a few games here and there, but it was very centralized. Now when you want to watch the NBA it is somehow more available and more fractured than ever before. Even today when there are more ways than ever to dig in to the NBA, I don’t think there’s any one that does it better.
Every other day my poor wife is subjected to my exuberance over the NBA on NBC intro. Not the song “Roundball Rock” but the little 1 minute introduction that comes before it. Each broadcast of the NBA on NBC, going back to the 90s, starts with that alittle introduction. A little vignette of who the teams are, who the main players are, and what the little storylines at play are — why you should care about this particular game. It goes such a long way into making each game feel important, and making any singular game accessible to anyone who isn’t neck deep into the NBA minutiae. Watching the games on NBC with my wife has been great because now she is so much more fluent in the season. Not just with our home team Spurs, but even the storylines going on with the OKC Thunder. It’s a TV show! Tell me who the characters are! What are they feeling? Why should I watch this?
I think that’s why so many people of a certain age are so big on the NBA, because once upon a time, if it was a Sunday, there was going to be a game on NBC. And we’d turn it on and see a little intro movie to explain why even a game in March between the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks was important. In addition to regularly programmed games, NBC also had NBA Inside Stuff which was 30 minutes of just the characters and storylines.
When the NBA left NBC, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it fell further behind other sports in popularity. ESPN spends zero time on any of the context. As much as they love to reference narratives and stars, they have zero interest in explaining any of this context to you. They expect that you already know about LeBron James, or Steph Curry from the general zeitgeist. And if they have to present anything not involving a character like that, they’d prefer not to. The TNT Crew, as sacred as they are, are little better. The games don’t start with any introduction. They jump straight into the crew. If you’re tuning in to the start of the game, you’re tuning in specifically to see Charles, Kenny, Ernie, and Shaq vamp about whatever they want. The NBA games themselves are little more than the plate on which the Inside the NBA meta-show is served. And if your team is not noteworthy enough to be brought up by the crew, then they might as well not exist.
The explanations of NBA on NBC have always been nonpartisan, giving any team their due as needed, even as they covered humongous stars like Jordan and Shaq.
Now it’s not hard to sell the drama when we’re talking Game 7 Spurs vs Thunder, but they always find a way regardless of the match up. In a world where nothing that is beautiful and pure goes rewarded anymore, it’s wonderful to see the NBA on NBC continue to shine in spite of it all.