It’s rare that sideline reporters are beloved, but it’s even rarer that the sidelines are roamed by a reporter like Craig Sager. Sports fans loved Sager, who passed away on Thursday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Sager was one of the faces of basketball coverage on TNT, as his in-game reports and interviews between quarters (especially the ones with Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) were the stuff of legends.
So it’s not a surprise that, prior to Thursday night’s game between Milwaukee and Chicago, Inside the NBA took some time to remember Sager. After an intro by Casey Stern, the show aired a beautiful video about Sager’s life and career.
Tributes to Sager have been coming in all day – plenty of people in the sports world, including LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, joined people like Rachel Nichols in paying homage to the perpetually well-dressed sportscaster. Even two TNT hoops analysts, Kevin Garnett and Chris Webber, took a few minutes to remember their friend before the show went on the air.
Everyone knew Inside the NBA was going to join the sports world when they went on the air on Thursday night. To the surprise of no one, the show knocked their tribute to Sager out of the park.
Once they went to the studio, Stern was joined by Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal to discuss Sager. Barkley said it best, “sports are better for knowing Craig Sager.”
