Documentary goes inside NBA show and Pittsburgh mastermind
Pittsburgh is — rather proudly — not a pro basketball town, so on an average night, most of its sports fans aren’t likely to tune into TNT’s Emmy-winning studio show “Inside the NBA” to catch up on what’s happening around the league. But if they do, they’ll find its ethos more familiar than they might expect.
That’s because Pittsburgh native Tim Kiely has been guiding the program as its producer through most of its three-decade run, which will be spotlighted on “The Inside Story,” a four-part documentary about the show that premiered on the network Thursday, continues at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and concludes Sunday after the All-Star Game.
In the first episode, Kiely’s role in shaping the show’s unscripted style and highlighting its larger-than-life personalities — from Charles Barkley to Shaquille O’Neal — is a focal point. And as he explained to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, his Western Pennsylvania background was a major influence.
“I wanted to capture the [expletive]-talkingthat people in Pittsburgh do,” he said. “I mean that in a good way. You’re going to get needled. If you’re from any part of town, you’re going to get needled.”
Kiely grew up around the Super Steelers of the 1970s in a very literal sense. His father, Ed, was a longtime publicist and utility man within the organization, so
Tim was able to get up close and personal with players, coaches and even owner Art Rooney Sr.
Once, he explained, Rooney caught him rooting around his office humidor for one of his signature cigars. Oops. As “punishment,” Rooney frog-marched Kiely to one of the dugouts at Three Rivers Stadium to share a smoke.
“He said I have to smoke a whole cigar with him, and if I don’t get sick, he won’t tell my dad,” Kiely recalled. He didn’t, to complete a pretty perfect crime.
That was just part of life in the Steelers offices, in which he served as “vice president of small errands” before playing football with future Hall of Famer Dan Marino at Central Catholic, then attending
Columbia University.
He returned to Pittsburgh after college and got his start in television at WTAE, where a couple of local personalities made impressions.
One, obviously, was the incomparable Myron Cope, he of the yois and double-yois who uniquely injected personality into his work as a Steelers broadcaster. Then there was John Steigerwald with his forward-thinking approach to storytelling. Turner That’s Sports a lesson after he took a stint producing ESPN’s to “SportsCenter.” details, As “Inside the documentary the NBA” started as a fairly conventional news and highlights package in 1988. But under Kiely’s leadership, it evolved into something else.
By encouraging free -flowing discussion and offscript moments, he has given his cast of characters an environment where they can stand out with everything from zany skits to combative analysis and even complicated discussions of race. the Host first beneficiary. Ernie Johnson Over was the years he has been joined by Barkley, Shaq and Kenny Smith to form a quartet that’s become both the epicenter of the sport’s discourse and a cultural touchstone. It probably would be provincial to say it started here. But for at least Kiely, evokes the show’s those success riproaring clashes of Pittsburgh punditry past. “You can’t tell Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith what to say,” he said.