Craig Sager, who died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer, was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame on Tuesday along with Verne Lundquist, Robin Roberts, and Tim McCarver. The NBA made a video out of the behind the scenes footage and it’s as touching as it is a great reminder of how impactful Sager was on so many people during his illustrious career.
“He’s the most unselfish person with whom I’ve ever worked in broadcasting,” Lundquist says during the video. “He is befittingly beloved in the NBA community and he should be.”
As Lundquist often does, he summed it up perfectly in just a couple sentences. Everyone loves Sager, and you can see that here in the video with testimonials from some of the industry’s greats. My only complaint is that it’s less than a minute. How can you point a camera at Bill Raftery and only record like seven seconds of footage? There’s no way that guy doesn’t have at least 11 good Sager stories. I bet there were all sorts of amazing anecdotes being swapped between Sager, Lundquist, and Raftery at the event. We need a behind-the-behind-the-scenes video with footage of that in the coming days.
From Lee Jenkins’ brilliant profile on Sager from earlier this year:
“Whenever Craig Sager is covering your game, you know it’s a big one,” says Cavs forward LeBron James. “But when I look over and see him covering our game right now….” His voice tails off. “Talking about it makes me sentimental.”
The NBA released this video before Turner announced that Sager had died at the age of 65. It’d end up being a perfect tribute to his brilliance and his indomitable spirit. #SagerStrong forever.
— TNT Sports U.S. PR (@TNTSportsUS) December 15, 2016
