Now that we are into 2025, we are just months away from the start of a new era of NBA television, as NBC and Amazon get set to join ESPN as the league’s national TV partners starting with the 2025-26 season. NBC has already begun running promos for their return to the NBA space, running a new ad spot with Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Victor Wembanyama during their NFL Playoff games, while Amazon has announced the first three hires for their new studio show.
Taylor Rooks will host the show with Dirk Nowitzki and Blake Griffin joining as analysts, as Amazon seems to be taking a similar approach to how they built their NFL studio show, leaning on recently retired players rather than longtime media veterans. Griffin recently joined Carmelo Anthony on his 7PM in Brooklyn podcast and explained why he is excited about the job and how he hopes to be more pro-player than other shows and “bridge the gap” between players and fans. He brought up, specifically, how he expects their show to differ from Inside the NBA (starting at the 10:30 mark of the video).
“Well first of all, I think the TNT show with Shaq, Chuck and those guys, it’s probably one of the best sports shows of all-time. To me, they’re just talkin sh*t. There’s not a lot of analysis,” Griffin said. “I mean that — it’s a great show, I’m not talkin’ sh*t. [They proceed to poke fun at Shaq and Chuck]… But what I’m excited to do is, I’m pretty fresh out. You know, the game changes, there’s always a new wrinkle that comes into the game every single year. Like, you come back and the coaches are like, we’re not doubling from the wing anymore, we’re doubling across. There’s always a new wrinkle. So for me, bringing analysis that’s current is a thing that I’m excited about. And also, like, being pro-player. Like you know how hard it is to go out every single night. You have off days you have off games, so to be able to bridge the gap between NBA fans and players and say, listen, did he have a bad game, yeah, he’ll be the first one to tell you he had a bad game. And to not do this thing where, oh he was doggin it tonight, but to explain like what’s going on. They played 4 in 5. That’s not easy, you know, they’re tired.”
He then got pressed by Monica McNutt about critiquing players and teams being part of the job, and explained how he will approach that but wants to do so in a more nuanced way.
“I think there’s a way to do it, though,” Griffin said. “Like, people sh*t on Rudy Gobert. … So here’s my take on this, Steph Curry, one of the best players of all-time, the thing that made Golden State so good is their defense was elite. You know what they did better than anyone else? Is they figured out a way to hide him, whenever people tried to pick on him, nope, somebody’s stepping up, somebody’s rotating, they’re shrinking the floor, they’re making calculated decisions on how to maximize him defensively. To me, the same thing should happen with Rudy Gobert. Don’t put him on an island with Luka. Figure out a scheme. As a coach, that’s all you do. Figure out a scheme. So maximize your defensive player and make him look good. So I’m not a guy who’s like, Rudy Gobert, he can’t do this. No, you figure out how to maximize his strengths and to downplay his weaknesses, cause we all have them. That’s how you talk about sports, and yes I can critique him and say like — by the way, no one can guard Luka. Why are you leaving him on an island? You’re gonna switch 1 through 5 at the end of the game?
I think this is certainly how Griffin and the Amazon show should be trying to approach things. I think part of the problem with other NBA shows in the past is they’ve tried to replicate the magic of Inside the NBA by taking the wrong lessons away from its success. It works because all of the jokes and critiques and everything else are naturally how those guys are, and if your takeaway is “this is how we should talk about the game” you end up with forced bits and people without the gravitas of Hall of Famers like Shaq and Chuck burying guys. That doesn’t work, and there’s really only room for one Inside the NBA.
As such, it’s great to hear that Griffin wants to provide fans with something very different. That’s the type of thing that would make for a much healthier ecosystem of NBA television shows. They should lean on their proximity to the game and the fact that they’re closer to their playing days and take advantage of what that means in terms of how they analyze things and their relationships with players, coaches, and teams. We’ll see exactly how that plays out once they get on air this fall, but if they embrace their own personalities and try to make the best version of a show that lets them be comfortable and talk about the game as they would off camera, then it figures to be a pretty good show.