The Press Box - Bob Costas on Michael Jordan, "Roundball Rock," Bill Walton, and 12 Years of the NBA on NBC

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Hello, media consumers! The NBA Finals begin this week, so Bryan brings you the podcast a day early, and he welcomes one of the most prolific voices in basketball history, Bob Costas. They take a look back at Bob’s time with NBC, discussing the following: The first year of the NBA on NBC and how Bob was wanted as a play-by-play announcer (2:02) The art of putting together the story of the game (6:52) Michael Jordan’s run during the beginning of the NBC era (16:22) The O.J. Simpson chase during the 1994 NBA Finals (24:28) Calling what we thought at the time was Michael Jordan’s final shot in the NBA (41:01) The 1998-99 NBA lockout (45:22) Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Bob Costas Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Danny Kelly, along with Danny Hyfitz and Craig Horlebeck every week on the Ringer fantasy football show as we prepare for the 2024 fantasy football season. We'll cover all the biggest news and topics across the league as well as whatever weird topics our listeners email us about. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Hello media consumers. Welcome to Press Box. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here along with producer Brian Waters. Let me give you two recent headlines. Number one, the NBA Football. final start on Thursday. And number two, it looks like NBA games are headed back to NBC,

where they were during the Round Ball Rock era of 1990 to 2002. Now, what's fascinating to me about the NBA on NBC is not that we remember Michael Jordan winning six titles, because of course we remember that. We remember the network coverage from the announcers to the theme song. So I want to do something different on Pressbox today. I wanted to bring on Bob Costas to relive those years. Now, you probably heard Costas on CNN this week talking about the WNBA. He was a huge part of the NBA on NBC. He handled the studio show for much of that period.

He later stepped in and became the network's number one play-by-play announcer, calling what we thought was Michael Jordan's final shot against the jazz in the 98 finals. I was inspired in this, if you can believe it, by listening to podcast with professional wrestlers, where an interviewer goes bit by bit through a period of time and asks every question they could think of. That's what I wanted to do with Costas. To cover not just MJ's final shot, but NBC getting the rights, NBC losing the rights,

Bill Walton, David Stern, what Jordan thought of NBC, doing play-by-play versus doing the studio, not hiring Charles Barkley, OJ Simpson, that's right, OJ Simpson calling Costas from the Bronco, and oh yeah, that John Tesh theme song. There's Bob Costas on the NBA on NBC. All right, Bob, let's start with something I didn't know. In 1990, the first year of the NBA on NBC, Dick Ebersol, who was the president of NBC Sports, initially wanted you and not Marv Albert

to be the number one play-by-play announcer. What happened there? I think it was a combination of Dick and David Stern. David, I think, felt that I was better known nationally than Marv. And my strong response to that was Marv will be well known nationally after two or three broadcasts. Obviously, he's a legend in New York. And could I do it?

Yes, I could do it. But this is me speaking to Dick now. So my feeling was that the best use of our entire roster is me in the studio with Pat and Marv calling the games. I don't know that either NBC or the NBA was as fully convinced of that until we did a game in Barcelona. And there was a teleprompter set up.

We were doing the game in Barcelona because it was also kind of an introduction to the 92 Olympics, which were looming and the first dream team. So we're doing the game from there. And whoever was running the teleprompter there, was not an NBC person. And he or she, I never met the person,

had no idea what they were doing. And we're coming out of a commercial, and all of a sudden the thing starts scrolling madly. And Pat is to my right, and it was going to start out on a two shot. And I just said, no, come in, just take the shot of me. And I forget exactly what the content was,

but I ad-libbed us out of and into the next thing, which is not much of a trick, Any competent studio guy could have done that. But Pat read the huge sigh of relief. And I think from there his thing was, you know, I'll ride shotgun, let Bob take care of this. And I reiterated to Dick, you know, Pat Riley's a huge star. He's going to be an important presence here. I can smooth the way.

But also part of my thinking was Marve Albert, you know, there's Chick Hearn and there are others. But certainly in the Northeast, Marve Albert was the greatest voice of basketball. on both radio and television. And then soon enough, that panned out. You know, at the end of that very first season, it's, oh, a spectacular move by Michael Jordan. Now, if anybody else said those words, they're just perfectly apt words.

But because of the way Marv says it, it resonates. So I think it was an easy decision. And I appreciate that David and Dick had whatever feeling they had initially, but I think they were wrong. And I think they would say, if David were here or if you asked Dick, they would say, yeah, we wound up with the best use of our roster. All right. So I mentioned NBC starts showing NBA games in 1990. CBS had them before that.

Inside NBC, what did you want to do with the NBA that was different than what other networks had done before? You know, I have to give Dick Ebersoll and some of the other producers involved. I have to give them the lion's share of the credit. Dick brought a storytelling perspective to almost everything. And I think the way we covered the lead and the relationship that Dick Eversoll had with David Stern, they had each other on speed dial. The idea was to take an already good product and amplify everything that was appealing about it. And to tell stories in dramatic ways.

I think what exemplified that was the opening, not to every game, but to the biggest games. We had this sort of dramatic opening that was the signature of the coverage of the NBA on NBC. Some of them are still knocking around on YouTube. 90% of them I didn't remember until someone called it to my attention again. Oh, yeah, was that in 1994? I guess it was. And to frame the league in the most dramatic fashion, to make stars out of not just the same, Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson who was still around in that first season

but everybody, that whole constellation of stars around the biggest star, Michael Jordan. You know, we did that effectively with everything we covered. The Olympics, baseball, the NFL. But I think maybe basketball in its own way was a signature property for that kind of approach.

And we had the right personnel to do it. We had great producers. We had a very good roster of announcers. and it all came together. You mentioned those intros or teases. I saw Jamal Crawford, the player-turned-broadcaster, tweeting about that not long ago,

about how he remembered those things and how they set up a huge game, as you say. Two teams, two leaders, two of the best the game is known, and now one game remains. One game, one winner, one NBA. champion. Game seven. Next.

What was the art to putting one of those together? I think it was to be dramatic without being cliched, without being over the top. The producers did such a great job of the cuts, the way the thing was edited, the music that would accompany it. I think it was an amplification of the drama, legitimate drama. the legitimate stakes, a legitimate narrative. It was an amplification of that. And I can't tell you how many people have told me over the years. I'm sure it's thousands by now.

Those openings gave me goosebumps. I was ready for the NBA already. But I almost wanted to run out on the court and grab the ball myself when that was over with. And, of course, the tag of all of it was, whatever my last word, game seven, next. Then-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-and-in comes John Tetch's round ball rock. and that was kind of the signature of, or at least part of the signature of how we covered the league. Why the network stopped doing those?

I don't know. Everybody feels, this is something that's kind of true, everybody feels that they have to do their own thing, their own way. You know, one of the things I will give as a detour, Mark Lazarus and company great credit for at Comcast. When they took over, they didn't look at what Dick Ebersoll had built, and say, how can we put our personal stamp on this? Why screw with Al Michaels and John Madden?

Why screw with this or that? It all works, the way it works. And they let it be, for the most part. And I think that maybe others who got the NBA thought that they'd be copycatting if they did it that way. But I still hear about it. It's like going on a quarter century since we last had it, 21 years, I guess, 2002, 22 years since we last had it.

But people still talk about it. I guess YouTube is a blessing in that respect. It brings it back. Absolutely. Let's talk about NBA Showtime, the studio show. You mentioned your partner was Pat Riley. You were renting him for one year. Now, the knock on coaches when you're renting them is that they're not going to say anything critical

because they're trying to set up their next job. How did you find Riley on that score? I found him to be somewhat cautious, but not to the point of giving you nothing. His overall take on the league, his overall basketball expertise, plus his presence was a net positive, a very large net positive. Were there times when he was a little more coy about coaching vacancies? And there was a couple of times, I can't remember verbatim, a couple of times when the Knicks situation was heating up where I had to ask him questions, not as his partner on the show, but the way someone would ask if they were just a member of the press. And I did that, I think, to the best of my ability.

And he wasn't all that revealing, but he didn't get angry about the questions because he knew it was my job. Seems like every sports studio show now has approximately 18 announcers sitting around the desk. Showtime had two, at least two main announcers at the desk, was the idea to keep it small, that? You know, I think we were kind of feeling our way. Dick knew that I could do my part, the traffic, the highlights, that sort of thing, and that Riley was Riley, and the audience would respond to that. I didn't know it until the first day we walked out on the set, but there was a basketball hoop behind us just for atmosphere. And I said, hey, somebody go and get a ball. and I decided that at the end of each show,

we would each take an effect of free throw from the set because it was probably about 12 feet away, not 15. And at the end of the season, I made up the wager. At the end of the season, if I win, then you have to take all the slick out of your hair and stop being good gecko and you got to go dry. But if you win, then I got to go with your hair. And the USA Today actually wrote a story about it

and had a box where, I guess, the digital technology wasn't quite as good in the early 90s as it is now, but they had my hair on top of his head and his on top of mine. It was kind of a funny thing. And it went right down to the last. And I remember Magic Johnson was in the Western Conference finals. And he comes on for an interview before whatever the last game was and they won and went on the finals against the Bulls. And the first thing out of his mouth was, Bob, why did you miss that shot last night? We were all rooting for you. I'm marching the game. we all thought you put or put our old coach away and we went to chicago for game one of the uh of the finals

and we were dead even we were tied and we decided we would shoot best of 10 on the floor before the game god's true riley makes like eight out of ten um john paxton is rebounding for us i went 10 for 10 and during the pregame show for game two, he had to come out, let me mess up his hair, and people got a kick out of what I guess. In addition to the two of us, though, we did have what we call the insiders on the show. Peter Vessy was one, wired into the league,

with his own distinctive and often a cervix style. And I think Bob Ferry, Danny Ferry's dad, former NBA player, a longtime front office guy with the Washington franchise. He was another. And then it changed over time. Other guys came in over time. But we did have that one segment, like in a little grotto, little alcove in the studio. We went over and talked to the insiders. But for most of it, it's just me and Pat. It's watching a few clips on YouTube. And it was amazing to see the wood paneling on the back of the studio, which was a very early to mid-90s thing where every

sports studio show looked like Fraser Crane's apartment? Right. Just a very, very funny time. Or how some people may have imagined their man cave would look. Yeah, it was a high-tone man cave, though, compared to what came after on sports TV. All right, so Costas does the tease. Here we go. It's Game 7 next.

As you mentioned, it feeds into John Tesh's song, which is now treated like, you know, a lost Beatles song or maybe Eagles song. You have a theory of why Roundball Rock has the stang power it has? Well, it's a really catchy tune, and it's associated with a tremendous era in the NBA. It isn't just the Jordan Bulls. You had other, think of the dream team. Everybody on the dream team is an NBA Hall of Famer, and Christian Leitner is a college hall of fame. Everybody on the team is a hall of fame. They're all bold-faced names, and the way the league was promoted, and this, I think, is key thing about the difference between the present NBA and the NBA of that time. And it's something

which accounts for a difference in perception between Michael Jordan and LeBron James. You can make a statistical argument for LeBron James over Michael Jordan. You can't make any argument for LeBron James even approaching Michael Jordan in broad appeal and impact. And NBC had something to do with that. We would show not just a Sunday game. We'd show a Sunday double header that followed a Saturday doubleheader during the playoffs. We'd put games on in prime time in the early rounds of the playoffs. And all of those games were promoted during Seinfeld and Friends and ER and Cosby and on the Tonight Show and the Today Show. And it was much more accessible to the average fan.

People maybe have heard me say this before because it's my go-to. on this. No little old lady in Omaha ever said, I'd love to play bridge with you tonight, Mildred, but I have to watch LeBron through no fault of LeBron's. But a whole bunch of little old ladies around America said something like that during the Jordan era. I got to watch Michael Jordan, and they might not have known a pick and roll from a back screen. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. That was the appeal that Michael Jordan had. Now, did he have that appeal in and of himself? Of course he did. But I really think that we at NBC maximized it.

And I've heard Michael say the very same thing in appreciation of Dick Ebersoll in our coverage. First season NBC has basketball. Jordan wins a title. Second season, he wins another title. Third season, another. Wines up winning six and NBC's 12 years of doing basketball. Is that luck or did Ebersoll in the network see that coming? I think we certainly saw the potential of it coming.

We couldn't have predicted it to play out the way. did. We certainly couldn't have predicted that he'd take a two-season and effect a break from it. And then his first full season back, they'd start another three-peed. And then we also looked into this. The season after he retires, or so we think, after the game-winning shot against Utah 98, there's a season that's shortened because of a work stoppage. San Antonio then wins its first title over the Knicks. But the next three years, which are last three years with the NBA, is a Laker three-peak with Kobe and Shaq. So we got those 12 years, we got nine of them as part of three-peats, two Bulls three-peats, then a Laker three-peat. And the only one, no disrespect to the Spurs or the Nix, but it was a weird situation, short in season, Knicks were an eight seed.

That one didn't resonate with the public outside New York and San Antonio the way the others did. But in the middle, you get the rockets in the final against Pat Riley, Pat Ewing, and the Knicks. And then the next year, you get the rockets again with Elijah on dueling with the young shack. So we had a lot of good fortune. We hardly ever drew a short straw. Did you ever hear from Jordan directly about what he thought about NBC's coverage? Yeah. not at length

but at David Stern's memorial service he mentioned it and I heard about it through Amad and Maude and I are very close friends and Ahmad is close to Michael in a way that I certainly never was

NBC did a documentary about Dick Ebersol called A Life in Television and Michael Jordan was one of the talking heads and he expressed a rather insightful of appreciation of what NBC's approach was. And then the other time would have been, I happened to be at the White House, which I am on a

regular basis, I happen to be at the White House during Barack Obama's last presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. And he emptied the whole bucket. And I happened to be there at Vin Scully's invitation because Vin got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But Karim and Michael Jordan were among the honorides. and so Michael was chatting me up a little bit and it was clear that he had an appreciation

of whatever small role that I had played and a somewhat larger role that NBC overall had played. Michael Jordan would have been a legend if he had only been on the radio. But I do think that the coverage, and CBS did a good job in the 80s too, but I do think the coverage of the Jordan era on NBC certainly in the TV,

enhanced something that didn't need all that much enhancement, but I think we've managed to enhance it a bit. Jordan wins his third title in 1993, and then he retires for the first time. He goes off and plays a season of minor league baseball. NBC had just renewed its NBA deal. What did it feel like inside the network when Michael suddenly walks away? It was stunning, and it was temporarily deflating, but if you watch some of those tapes or snippets, and I know you have, the quality of the coverage, you know, without Michael Jordan, it's not the same, you can't say it is, but the quality of the coverage and the effort and artistry that went into it, especially from the production standpoint, it didn't sag even a little bit.

It's funny. There's a great anecdote in Ebersol's memoirs, too, where Jordan, now having played the year of minor league baseball is thinking about coming back in 95. And he calls Ebersol and sort of feels Ebersol out on whether Dick and NBC will pay him to come back and play basketball, knowing the value to NBC if he does come back in those ratings. Well, you know, there was a case to be made that the whole league should have chipped in on Michael Joyer, that it shouldn't have just been Jerry Reinsdorf shelling out the $30 million or whatever it was at that time, that the whole league should have contributed. But of course, indirectly, NBC had already done that with the huge rights fees that they had to pay, which now seemed like a pittance.

It's almost amazing that Dick Ebersaw, considering how much he loved the NBA and how closest relationship was with David Stern, that he made such a cold calculation about what the bottom line business aspect of it was. And he felt that the rights fee was too large. And just like that, we walked away. we lost baseball in 2000. Second time we'd lost it. It was almost a birthright for NBC. And after the 1989 season, we lost it briefly. He had it back in the mid-90s, lose it again after 2000.

We'd already lost the NFL at some point in the 90s. And then we'd lose the NBA. The cupboard, after really being the sports network, I think it could be fairly be said. We had more good properties, all kind of coming together at the same time. And then the cupboard was close to base. there for a while until Dick made his poker play and got a Sunday night football. For NBC, part of the point of buying NBA rights is to promote the league. And then amidst all that promotion, you're also doing some journalism.

What did NBC do that pissed off the league the most in terms of journalism? Well, if it's one incident, it might have been my grilling of David Stern at halftime of game six of the 93 finals in Phoenix. the story about Michael Jordan's gambling connections had bubbled to the surface. And every year at halftime, we did an interview, half time of a finals game. We did an interview with David Stern. It was kind of a staple. But I guess I pressed a little bit harder on that one than maybe he or NBC would have expected. I think it was really good TV.

and stern himself to his credit. He called me maybe a week after. He says, can we stop talking about this? And I said, David, I'm not like standing on our street corner talking about it. People keep asking me about it. And I'm just responding to it. And he says, okay, maybe you won round one. I'll get even the next time.

But he said it only jokingly. And he would say during the regular season, every time we cross past, the whole time that I was the hostet NBC. Are you getting your questions ready? You're going to be ready? And he didn't mind. Ebersol actually was a little more protective of David than David was of himself. And I remember saying to Dick once, and Dick and I have a relationship that's hard to explain. Occasionally we buttered heads. My wife said to him once, he didn't always like you, but he always loved you.

and that was 100% true. Any falling out we had was like if you fell out with your brother. When push came to shove, you'd be there for them. That's how I feel about Dick Ebersaw. And I said to him at one point, you know, Dick, David Stern was with the Prosscower firm. David Stern is an attorney. You think David Stern quivers at the prospect of me cross-examining him?

You know, I got to step my game up to be equal with him. He's fine. you don't need to bubble wrap David Stern. It's good TV. And I actually think David convinced Dick. Yeah, A, it was good TV, and B, he wanted to do it. Another journalistic episode, June 17th, 1994. On one side of the NBC screen, we got game five of Nick's Rockets in the finals.

On the other side, we got the OJ low speed chase through the highways of Los Angeles. Is it true that OJ tried to call you from the Bronco that night? Yes, it was. true, but I didn't know it at the time. That Friday night, the Knicks win, they go up 3-2, back to Houston, Rockets win on Sunday night, and game 7 isn't until Wednesday. And on that Monday, the phone rings in the hotel, and it's a woman from Time Magazine, whose name I don't recall because the whole conversation lasted for a minute. And she said, we hear that OJ tried to call you from the back of the Bronco. And I say, truthfully, I think at the time,

No, that never happened. And I don't think another thing of it until I visit OJ in the L.A. County jail at his request, he'd sent word that next time you're in L.A., you know, please come and see me. So I did. And Robert Kardashian and A.C. Cowlings were both there as I visited with O.J. And somewhere in the middle of this conversation, Cowling says, you know, we tried to call you from the Bronco. And now it clicks that maybe the woman from Time Magazine was on to something. And so I say to OJ, why in that moment would you want to contact me? And this is the way OJ spoke. He said, they were dogging me, Bob.

They were dogged me. Now, as serious as it was, it's still kind of amusing that he put it that way. And I said, yeah, that's kind of an understatement, OJ. And his point was not so much about the alleged crime, but that as more information became available about his background that was at odds with a public image, that that unfavorable characterization of him was out there. And he was upset over that. Why he was thinking about that exactly, one of the things he was thinking about in the Bronco that night, I don't know. But he thought maybe that I could help set the record straight about him as a person overall.

And he cited the names of some very prominent network television people that he felt had been unfair to him, who I won't mention now. And I said, well, you know, it was a moot point at this point. It's months later. And he also said, and I guess he said this to other visitors, you know, Bob, I couldn't possibly have done this. And I'm just, uh-huh. And he said that. And if I did do it, would I be stupid enough to leave a glove in the driveway and et cetera, et cetera? And to everything he said, I just said, well, you'll have a chance to tell your side of the story in court, and you'll have excellent representation. And my guess is, I can never prove this, that he inferred from that that I didn't believe in his innocence, which was why he never asked for me to come back after that, which was fine. You know, it seems almost irrelevant if you're involved pretty clearly in a double homicide. everything else about you is rendered not just secondary but close to irrelevant but in my experience

prior to june of 1994 oj was great company he was a good on-air teammate he was very very friendly to everybody he encountered he was very kind to me um i had nothing but positive feelings about him but when something happens like what happened in June of 94, that changes everything. And after that November meeting in the jailhouse, he and I never had any contact subsequent to that. That night, if he makes it through the NBC phone tree and gets to you, would you have tried to interview him on the air? If he was willing to go on the air, I would have had to.

And I found out subsequently that after trying my home in St. Louis, and there was nobody home. and I didn't have a cell phone at that time. He then called the studio at 30 Rock. And we did the basketball show from the same studio that we did the football show. But since it was the finals, we were at Madison Square Garden. And apparently he called several times. And finally a tech picked up the phone. And he said, I need to speak to Bob Kastas.

He's not here. I got to speak to him. He's not here. I must speak to him. Well, who's calling? O.J. Simpson. Yeah, right. Click.

And the guy hung up. I later discovered who it was. not that I'm putting any guilt on him. You or I might have done the very same thing out of those circumstances. But he acknowledged that, yeah, I was the guy who answered the phone, and that's just how it played out. But let's suppose that he had gotten through to me. You know, Dick Ebersoll had a very different set of circumstances to deal with than any other network had that night. Whether there's broadcast TV or cable, they all went full on this.

And you have to remember, we know how it turned out, but we have to remember. we know how it turned out, but we didn't know for sure that he wouldn't blow his brains out in the Bronco, or once he got to his home in Brentwood, how that would play out? Would he surrender peacefully as he did? Or could there be gunplay? Could there be some kind of drama in the driveway? Who knew? So all this was playing out in real time.

This was a real drama. I think Tom Brokaw at one point called it a Shakespearean tragedy. As I was in between, like Marv's calling the game, we got the split screen. Mars throws it to me. I get it back to Brocah. Brocah, that's a summation. I get it back to Marv. The whole situation is surreal.

But let's assume that he wanted to go on the air. I think Dick Ebersol would have recognized that this is of transcendent importance and interest. And I think I would have had to play the same role that you would if Ted Cappell had been there, which is OJ, did you do it? And let's suppose he says no. Well, then in that case, OJ, if you're an innocent man and you have good representation, what are you doing in the back of the Bronco with a gun to your head? What are you doing with a sack of cash?

What accounts for this? These are not the actions of an innocent man. No matter what he said in response, that mere exchange would be of great. interest to the public and then i think at some point i would have to do what the uh the police the detective tom lang did an admirable job of doing try to calmly say oj no matter what the circumstance is put the gun down turn yourself in think about your family you'll get good representation don't let it end this way so part of it would have been journalistic and part of it would have been the council of a friend but never happen just

talking him into custody. Absolutely. I want to ask you about Bill Walton, who died a little over a week ago. He did a ton of announcing at NBC. What was Bill Walton like as a network announcer? Everybody loves Bill Walton because his heart was so pure.

His intentions were so pure. He came at life in his own unique way, but one of the distinguishing characteristics was how much he genuinely cared about other people. In some way, he wanted to enhance your day.

And before I get to him as a colleague, he used to say to me, and I understand now he must have said it to many others. You know, he and I were very friendly. We had some episodes together, but I'm sure I couldn't have ranked among the 100 most consequential people in his life, but he ended every text exchange

or every conversation with me, thank you, Bob, thank you for my life. And at first I thought he was just being over the top. And then I realized that everyone that was of consequence even a little bit to him was part of the vast mosaic of his life. So John Wooden or Kareem or his wife, Lori, they're bigger pieces of the jigsaw. But all of us who me cared about were at least a piece of the mosaic of his life. So when he said, thank you for my life, that's what he meant. At first I thought it was just silly.

But the more I thought about it, it was touching. and meaningful. I only did one game with him. I did a few things on set with him, but game seven, one of the most important games during the whole time of the NBA and MDC, game seven of the Western Conference Finals in 2000,

Big Laker comeback from 15 down against the Trailblazers. Doug Collins' daughter graduated from Lehigh that weekend, so he couldn't be at the game. So we bring in Walton and the snappers Steve Jones, and they were a great tag team. And I don't think either was as good without the other, because Steve knew how to deflate Bill, you know, bring them back down to Earth. It was just a

great dynamic between them. And I had observed that with them and Tom Hammond. But I remember saying to Bill before the game, now Bill, this is a huge game. The first few minutes, unless something completely out of the order to happen, the first few minutes, just let me lay it out for the audience, how the series is gone, how the season is gone, what's its take? Once we get to like nine minutes left in the first quarter, then, you know, everything, you jump in and do your thing. And Bill was pacing around as if he was going to play the game. And then we get to the opening.

And if you look at that opening, which again, I hadn't seen in 20 years, and then it shows up on YouTube. And I think I turned to Snapper first, and he did his part. And then I turned to Bill, and I forget what my setup was. And he says, and you know, you think about it, he had a stuttering problem. He went to speech pathologists. The great Marty Glickman helped him. He overcame that.

That's a touching story and a triumph for him. In that moment, in a complicated series of things that he wanted to say, points he wanted to get in, graphics and footage that was going to accompany it, He nailed it as well as any professional broadcaster, but it was the Walton style. Bob, this is about Shaq and Shaq alone. Where is the youthful energy? Where is the physical intimidation able to deliver thunderous dunks? It's a sad story as we look back on the last two games.

We're in the fourth quarter. This giant of a man all but disappears. This is about a big game. And the story is whether Shaq will. step up or not. And I'm like, this is incredibly great television. I think all I could say was Bill Walton calling Shaquille O'Neal out. He was just so honestly, it wasn't an act. That was who he was. He was a great, great player. And I know people say this all the time, a better human being than he was a player or an actor or whatever. He was a great human being. In addition to being when he was

healthy, one of the greatest players ever. Let's talk about doing play-by-play. 1997, Marv Albert pleads guilty to assault and battery, gets fired by NBC, and you become the new lead, play-by-play announcer. Is that you raising your hand, or is that Ebersol coming back

to you? No, that's Ebersol coming back to me. I think that, you know, Tom Hammond could have done an excellent job. Tom is very good at everything he's ever done. On the Olympics, on football, on basketball. So if he had said, hey, Tom Hammond's the guy, I would have been perfectly okay for that. And I said to Dick, we had this meeting and I said, it may not seem like it now.

But if and when Marv is able to come back, I'm just keeping the seat warm. This is one of a number of things I do. It's Marv's signature thing and he's the best ever to do it. So if this is what you need me to do, because Dick and I had some. such a unique relationship. He created the late night show that wasn't sports for me. So I felt like I owed him. If you really want me to do this, I'll do it. And so I did. But when Marv was ready to come back, no problem at all. I just, you know, he gave me the baton. No, I'm giving it back to you. You've done ABA games in St. Louis, the Bulls for WGN.

How many games did you have to call that year before you felt you were doing it at a level you were happy with? It was about half. the season. I think I was doing it competently, but the turning point came when Doug Collins left the Pistons. Isaiah Thomas had just retired, and Dick liked to collect stars, you know, Pat Riley, Bill Walsh, Isaiah Thomas, whatever it might be. And that was a good call, but Isaiah was always better in the studio than in that circumstance. He had to learn the ropes of that circumstance. And I was a a little rusty when it came to basketball. When we did a game in Detroit,

and I could tell that Doug was at Wits' ends, he always put a lot of heart and soul into it. He was always very emotional. And I remember calling Dick. I've never talked about this until now publicly. I called Dick and I said, one or two things is going to happen. Either Doug is going to resign or the pistons are going to fire him.

but the minute he becomes available, you've got to hire this guy. And he became available, I think, on Thursday. And on Sunday, he was in Indianapolis with me and Isaiah for the Sunday game of the week. And when Doug joined us, then it made my job easier. He was, he's the best, I think, ever on the NBM. I mean, I love Hugh B. Brown. I love Van Gundy. with Jackson and others have done a good job.

But Doug is just a tremendously adept broadcaster as well as an astute observer. And I think it came together to answer your question, Brian, as we approach the playoffs in 98, it had come together. Got to a place you wanted it to be. Yeah. 98. You know, it's what you think sometimes, you know, you do it. You remember bits and pieces of it.

Now we're all kind of shut in in the early days of COVID. There's no live sports. And the last dance lands. And so the last dance is filled with our coverage of that 98 season. And you don't remember everything you said or how you did it. But 22 years later, you look back on it and it all held up pretty well. So that was gratifying. Here's a moment.

98 Eastern Conference Finals. It's Bulls Pacers. Dennis Rodman comes flying over the announce table, does a full somersault and winds up basically sitting on top of you, you're on the floor. What do you remember about that moment? First of all, it's an incredible play. He goes diving out of bounds, saves the ball cleanly inbound. The game is still going. And at first, you know, it's one of those things.

He hit me in the chest and coming at high speed. And in that split second, you're thinking, I should be badly hurt now, shouldn't I? But I wasn't. I'm thinking in that split second between being knocked ass over tea kettle out of the seat and winding on the floor at Market Square Arena, I'm thinking I'm going to the hospital now, are I? But I was okay. But now we're entangled.

All the wiring and everything, and he's like, it's like an octopus is on top of me. And we're trying to untangle each other. and in some of the replays that I've seen, I'm saying, Dennis, move your leg. Dennis, move your leg. So we're trying to untangle from each other, and the game is going on. And then he jumped right back over and rejoined the flow of the game.

And I sat back down and started calling the game again. One round later, you get to call what we thought at the time was Michael Jordan's final shot in the end. NBA. Alon is doubled. They swat out of in Steve. Chicago.

17 seconds. 17 seconds. From game seven or from championship number six. Jordan. Open. Chicago with the lead.

Time out, Utah. 5.2 seconds left. Michael Jordan running on fumes with 45 points. What do you remember about calling that sequence? You come into it aware that, A, this may be the last season

of the Bulls dynasty. It was Phil Jackson who said, this is the last dance. So we had a pretty good idea. This might be the end. And I think some of what we said during the earlier rounds of the playoffs was along the lines of, well, if this is it, if this is the last dance, it might as beyond their dance floor here in Chicago. So you knew that that was a storyline. But the jazz are also a storyline. Back to back finals, Stockton and Malone. It's not like these are just foils.

These are real foes, not foils, and you have to give them their credit. And if they win game six, this isn't a coronation, it's a competition. If they win game six, which they almost did, game seven is at the Delta seven. and maybe the odds shift toward them. They had won both regular season games against the Bulls,

which gave them home court advantage in the playoffs. So you're aware of all of this. It's not like you're sitting there with a script that says Michael Jordan is going to make this classic shot and hold the poses if he's posing for a statue. That's the way it happened, but you can't anticipate it. And even when it did happen, there's 5.2 seconds left. So if Utah scores, there's a game seven.

So everything has to be couched with a, you know, a little bit of maybe this, maybe that. That may have been, who knows what will unfold in the next several months. But that may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will ever take in the NBA. But I also knew, you didn't have to be a genius to know this, that Michael Jordan transcended the sports pages, that if that moment was the clincher, that it would be on the front page of this papers, not just of the sports page, that it would be in time and newsweek, not just Sports Illustrated. So, you know, saying that may have been the final shot Michael Jordan will ever take

in the NBA was a fairly obvious thing to say. And then our production was so good, David Neal producing and Andy Rosenberg directing. As I was talking about it, there was a slow motion replay. And I just happened to be saying, if that's the last image of Michael Jordan, how magnificent is it as the ball in slow motion goes through the net? If you had 10 shots at it and had do-overs, it couldn't all come together as well as that did. So we were lucky. I was thinking about this when Vern Lundquist retired a few months ago and they were playing his calls of Tiger and Jack Nicholas. What does it feel like to have your words linked to a great sports moment like that? you feel a combination of some small measure of pride that you didn't mess it up,

but also gratitude that you were in the right place at the right time and the circumstances came together as they did. And that, you know, it holds up. I really had not, except for the last shot, I hadn't reviewed or heard any of the stuff in 22 years until the last dance came along. And in watching the documentary, I'm thinking, yeah, NBC really kind of nailed this. Not me, alone, certainly. I mean, you know, Doug and Isaiah and David Neal and Andy Rosenberg and Dick Embersoll's guidance.

This was a great story to tell. And NBC did a great job of telling it. A couple questions about the end of the NBA on NBC. Jordan retires in 98 for the second time, if not final time. Yeah. As you mentioned earlier, the NBA owners decide to celebrate that event by locking out the players for the first 30 games of the season. NBC has no basketball. what did it feel like at NBC during the lockout?

It was frustrating. And then when the season resumed, there was a certain hollowness about it. But then you get into the playoffs. And I remember Sean Elliott made a last second three-pointer from the corner in San Antonio in game two of their, I think it was the Western Conference Finals against Portland. And that shot, the final score was the only time that the spurs led in the whole game. And Elliot was six for six on threes. He's walking a tightrope. And in that moment, and the huge crowd, because they played in a football stadium then, the huge crowd erupting, you're caught up in the moment.

You're not saying, oh, you know what? This season feels half-ass because there was a lockout. In that moment, it's like the excitement of the moment. And the Knicks came from an eighth seed, and they beat Pat Riley in the heat, you know, to get there along the way. And even though it was a five-game series, a couple of those games were close and the Madison Square Garden is jumping. You know, it's what happens when you're broadcasting. You just get into that moment. And while everything that surrounded it that happened before, that might happen next, you're mindful of it.

your job is to reflect how it feels in the moment. And during most of that that playoff series, if not the regular season, but the playoff season, it felt like pretty good basketball. Yeah, I guess the panic was in the front office at NBC because the ratings tanked after the lockout.

Yes. And it really takes Shaq and Kobe even a few years to kind of get those back to a happier place for the NBA. Right. You got a lockout and you got no Michael Jordan. And the Spurs had not, that's the beginning of their dynasty. And that actually didn't really pick up until later in the 2000s.

And the Knicks are an AC, big market, but an AC. So it felt comparatively nondescript. I'll give you that. But it did have some exciting moments. In 2000, Charles Barkley retired from the NBA after he hurt his knee. And I'd like to say, even without the benefit of hindsight, he seemed like the kind of guy who would be a great announcer for NBC. Yeah.

How does the network let him go and let him sign with Turner? And, you know, I think that Dick Eversal was even then a huge fan of Charles Barkley. And I really don't have the insight into how that played out. And if NBC could have grabbed him and didn't, at that point, the pregame show, and I can't remember all the particulars, I left the pregame show after that. Dick kind of rewarded me. He said, you know, you were a good soldier. You did what we wanted you to do, and you did a good job. if you want to go to hbo now

HBO had made overtures to have me join them for like 10 years if you want to go to hbio now you can and so i did and i made contributions to the nba coverage in 2001 and two i filled in on some games play by play and i did some things uh for the pregame show and they did have me host the finals because they knew we were losing it was the last uh playoff series on nbc i did host the finals in 2002. But for the most part, I wasn't there for the

2001 and 2002 seasons. I certainly wasn't there in the studio. But I remember they ran through a bunch of people. I thought Tom Tolbert had real potential, and he's really good on the radio now in San Francisco. But, you know, he only had like a half-season run or whatever it was. And Jason Williams was

there for a while. And Isaiah was in the studio, and Peter Vessie was still there. And Hannah, who's graded everything she does. Hannah's hosting. but I can't really remember how all the particulars came together. I think you speak the last words of the NBA on NBC. Marv throws it to you in 2002. You throw it to this montage,

which is also on YouTube and it's also amazing. Just to see the amount, the number of moments that are packed into those 12 years, what did it feel like in that moment to essentially say goodbye to basketball for NBC? I think there was a wistfulness. It was part of the. identity of NBC sports.

And so many people had contributed to it and had done really good jobs of doing so. We felt that we had put a stamp, a stamp of our own on the NBA. The league elevated us, but we elevated the league as well. But you don't want to be too mottling in those circumstances. I don't know why I remember this, but Marv concluded. with Bill and Snapper. They did their little valedictory at the end. And then Marv said something sardonic to Walton and throws it back to me.

And I said, yes, Marv. And as Marv himself might say, it should be noted that today Marv is celebrating his 49th birthday for the 12th consecutive year. So why that occurs to me, I do not know. And so, you know, then I think the idea was not to have too many hearts and flowers. You know, there have been a lot of indelible moments. Here's a look back. And for one last time, you've been watching the NBA on NBC.

And then those highlights spoke for themselves. You know, you didn't have to gild that lily at all. You know what I think also you'll make of this what you will, including tossing it out. Marv, in addition to being a great play-by-play man, I don't think people fully appreciate how funny Marv is, but it's all completely deadpan. So one time in 96, the Bulls are on their way to 72 and 10, and I think they're like 55 and 5, and there's an afternoon game against the Nakes at the Garden, a Sunday afternoon game. So I'm in the studio, and we do a feature about the Bulls, and I'm about to throw it out to Marv and Matt Gookis,

and I say, the Bulls 55 and 5, it's 96, so it's a presidential election year. Bull's defeats happening roughly as often as Pat Buchanan pops in a CULIO CD. Marv? And he has no idea, I'm going to say this, right? And he comes to Martin and he goes, Bob, going to the knee-slapping political material, they're just completely, completely deadpan. But you know, Brian, the story of maybe the single greatest line in the history of network TV sports. It might involve the dog in Madison Square Garden.

You want to tell that to people who don't know it? dog. It involves a dog outside Madison Square Garden. You don't see the master except from like the knee down. And it's a bulldog. And the bulldog is on a leash and is wearing a sport coat and ascot and a beret. And the dog has a cigarette dangling from its lips. And that's an establishing shot as they come out of a commercial before they go back into the garden. And as luck what happened. It's a wide shot of the big crowd, and they only then narrow in on the court. And Marv lets the image seep in. He's with Fratello, and he goes, Mike, always so troubling. When a dog smokes. And who can deny that? It is deeply troubling.

It's a really good point. It really is. I'm glad he underlined that for any kids that happen to be watching at home at that moment. I had dinner with Barb a couple of weeks ago, and I reminded him of a story I told him years before. My son Keith, who's now 38 years old, but when he was seven or eight, I'm calling him to come to dinner in St. Louis. Keith, get down here for dinner. Keith, where are you? I've called you to my. Keith, and from the top of the steps, I now see him. Keith come down here, and he goes, all right, Bob, because he'd already internalized the dynamic between me and Marve Albert. Get down here right now for dinner. All right, Bob.

2002, New York Times reported that ESPN put together an offer for you that would have involved, among other things, working on their newly acquired NBA package. How close did you get to taking that? You know, honestly, Brian, I don't even recall that, which doesn't mean it isn't true. They may have had by then some, baseball package too. So it probably would have been NBA and baseball because it was common knowledge how much I enjoyed doing baseball. And I didn't do any baseball between 2000 and 2009 until the baseball network came into existence. But I never came close. I never came close on that

and a few other offers just because it's nice to be with one franchise for your whole career. It's nice to be Brooks Robinson or Stan Musil, you know. And it almost worked out that way for me at NBC for almost 40 years. And certainly, I was there for the entire tenure of Dick Ebersaw. And a lot of it was my loyalty to Dick. And he had been very fair to me. Let me go to HBO. And during that period of time, before we got a piece of Sunday night football,

then they started to use me on the Kentucky Derby and stuff, just to kind of keep my name on the letterhead in between Olympics. So, you know, I don't look back on that with any regret. Last one for you, Bob. It's always interesting to me that fans of the NBA from that era remember not just Jordan, not just Barclay and Akeem and everybody else. They actually remember the NBA on NBC. They remember the network coverage, which is funny to me, even as a person who covers this stuff.

What is your theory as to why that sticks in people's minds? because it was good. Because we did our job collectively, nearly as well as the best players in the league, we're doing their job. It was a symbiotic relationship. We took a great product, and I think our presentation made it even more appealing to the public. Plus, even though there were games on TNT or TBS then, it was still primarily a broadcast television property, therefore accessible to more of the American

public, therefore more of a water cooler thing. Now, you know, Michael Jordan and all the dynamics of it played into it perfectly, but, you know, the kind of perfect storm of circumstances, it just all maxed out in the best possible way. Bob Kossis, thank you for coming on the press box. Thanks, Brian. All right, it's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about Joe Biden honoring the Super Bowl champs was the commander and chiefs.

Today's headline comes to us from valued listener Andrew Joe Potter. It's from the Toronto Star. Story David is about a man in a battle with the city of, over his yard. He's got what they call a naturalized yard. I think I've had a naturalized yard from time to time too. Kind of let her rip into anyway, the man got into it with the city,

which has a rule that says you can't have that kind of yard. So a man is fighting the rule about his naturalized yard. What was the Toronto Stars? strained pun headline. All right. My mind immediately goes to a pun that I don't think that doesn't work at all for the story, but something about the I fought the lawn and the lawn won or something is that. You've got the right pun and actually just that that is,

that is in fact better than what the Toronto Star came up with. So just just flatten that baby out a little bit. I fought the lawn. I fought the lawn. I just mean a little more straight up. Lawn and order. Lawn and order. All right.

I'm not sure that the lawn won in this case. Well, it's naturalized, you know. Yeah. The rest of the story was behind a paywall, so I couldn't quite get to it. But yeah. Lawn and order is the headline. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis.

Production Magic by Brian Waters. As I researched this pod, Richard Sandemir's columns and stories from the New York Times in the 90s were a terrific resource about Bob Costas, about the NBA on NBC, and all that was going on in sports TV at that time. If you're new here to the press box, I want to welcome you. Please come back.

This is how we do things over here on our media podcast where we cover the coverage. Every Monday, David Shoemaker and I chop it up about all the news and happenings in the world of politics, sports, everything else. On Thursdays, we have guest hosts from The New York Times, from the New Yorker, and other places. We're going to release a full June press box schedule soon,

and you can bet there will be more lukewarm takes about the media. Enjoy the NBA finals. Go Mavs and have a fantastic weekend.