A 1997-98 NBA on NBC Press Kit

Cue "Roundball Rock."

Taking a break from my Basketball Thoughts Diary due in large part to the early season ‘meh’ explained beautifully and in great detail by Kelly Dwyer¹. I thought I’d throw it back to the 1997-98 season and break down a press kit from NBC Sports.

Those of us of a certain age can remember the time of MySpace and the feature that allowed you to use a profile song that would play automatically while someone looked at your page. If my newsletter were my MySpace profile, you’d hear “Roundball Rock” over and over again. Let’s get to it!

• First off, incredible cover. Can’t wait to see what’s inside.

• So sorry, the labels here are throwing me off. How am I supposed to read this? They appear to be a part of the write-up here at first glance, but they’re not.

• Where does this Bulls jersey rank all-time? It’s got to be near the top of the list, no?

• I love this picture of Shaq. It looks like he’s watching the ending of The Notebook rather than throwing down a vicious dunk.

• Where are the stats for female viewers? Also, what does Professional/Managerial even mean? Are managers not professional? Michael Scott would like a word.

  Also, where do these jerseys rank all-time?

• Key takeaways from this page:

  • The older you are, the more you enjoy watching racing, golf, and horses

  • Age has little bearing on how much one enjoys watching NHL all-stars

  • The younger you are, the more you enjoy NBA all-stars

• Peak Pistons jersey. I have a photo of me with my cousins at Disney World rocking this one. This jersey ranks #1 all-time. It’s hoops jersey perfection.

• They really wanted to highlight the sweatiness of Patrick Ewing here, huh?

• Interesting note, the 1998 NBA Finals were the highest rated all-time, averaging 29.04 million viewers. Game 6 averaged an eye-popping 35.89 million viewers!

Have a great week!

1. I watched the Mavs/Suns game on Friday and felt the ‘meh’ starting to go away (basketball is fun again!), but then Durant got injured the next day and fell back down to earth (basketball is not fun again).