For diehard basketball fans, Craig Sager and his wonderfully flamboyant suits have been a staple of our weekly NBA on TNT fix, and his increasingly absurd in-game interviews with the notoriously-taciturn Gregg Popovich have also become a delightful little subplot weaving its way through the narrative of each 82-game season the past several years.
But the veteran sideline reporter’s on-camera time has been drastically-reduced in recent years due to his ongoing battle with leukemia. Prior to this season, Sager announced that his cancer was in remission and that doctors had medically cleared him to return to action. Fittingly, he made that triumphant return in a touching segment with Popovich in December and has been going relatively strong ever since.
But in a recent interview with HBO Real Sports, the 64-year-old Sager announced that his cancer has returned. Here’s what Sager said to Bernard Goldberg in a trailer for the episode that is set to air on Tuesday, March 22:
“I’ve already had two stem cell transplants. Very rarely does somebody have a third. So I have to maintain my strength, so I can go through this,” Sager said. “Still kicking, still fighting. I haven’t won the battle. It’s not over yet. But I haven’t lost it, either. There have been some victories and some setbacks, but I still have to fight it. A lot of work to do.”
We wish Sager and his family all the best during this extraordinarily difficult time.
