Warriors’ broadcasters ready to adjust
The first thing to remember about the upcoming NBA season is that it will be a veritable minefield of pandemicrelated obstacles. Playing the games, avoiding coronavirus outbreaks, being able to stage the playoffs — all of that has taken on special meaning, with considerable sacrifice required from everyone involved.
That’s why you won’t hear any complaints from the Warriors’ television and radio crews, who won’t be traveling to road games. Until further notice, they’ll be working those games remotely, just as the Giants and A’s announcers did during baseball season. Watching television monitors from games many miles away, trying to convey the same old excitement — that’s the challenge, and the thrill.
“In the grand scheme of things, we’re fortunate to be in the toy department of life,” said Bob Fitzgerald, who calls the telecast playbyplay alongside analyst Kelenna Azubuike on NBC Sports Bay Area. “The real world is here. There are people who are really struggling. If we can provide 21⁄ hours of distraction
2 or entertainment for people, we’re happy to do that. My attitude about everything in 2020 is to not complain or have any issues with anything.”
The NBA guidelines require all broadcast crews to be at least 30 feet from the court, and that won’t be a problem for the Warriors. The TV booth, situated just behind Chase Center’s courtside seats, is an ideal setup that will remain intact. For radio playbyplay man Tim Roye and partners Tom Tolbert
( home games) and Jim Barnett ( road), the 95.7 FM setup will be moved to the visitors’ TV booth on that same level, allowing for more comfortable distancing between the announcers and “we can spread out more,” Roye said.
In normal times, every announcer wants to be as close to the court as possible. That’s hardly the case now. “I’m glad we’ve got plenty of distance,” Tolbert said. “If you’re right down by the players in an arena with no fans, I don’t want to be like, ‘ Hey, get back on defense,’ and the guy looks at me like, ‘ Dude, I can hear you.’
“It’s definitely gonna be weird. My whole time with the Warriors, going back to when I was playing, the volume in the arena was amazing — just a really loud, raucous place. But I can get used to emptiness. It’ll be like sitting on the bench when I played with the Clippers” in 199394.
For Roye, “It kind of brings me back to the beginning of my career. Doing college games in small towns, maybe a Division III game with about 100 people there. You just have to deal with a different feel, like we did back then.”
Once the Warriors hit the road — the season’s first four games will be in Brooklyn ( Dec. 22), Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit — it’s likely that both crews will work from their customary Chase Center locations. ( The Giants’ and A’s broadcasters did the same from Oracle Park and the Oakland Coliseum.) Another option, perhaps coming into play at times, will be calling the games from a San Francisco studio.
“Thank goodness Tim’s doing the playbyplay, because he’s so great at it,” Barnett said. “It’s not going to be easy, watching a television and trying to pick out a guy’s number if you’re not sure who it is. That’s really going to be a challenge. But the big thing is not traveling. For one thing, I’ve always loved it. Getting on that plane, staying in luxurious hotels, having fabulous meals every day, living a charmed life. I hate having to lose that.
“But mainly I’m gonna miss the interactions with the players, the casual conversations we have all the time, the familiarity, really feeling like you’re part of it. You can follow the team, sure, but it’s not the same as sitting down and having dinner across the table from Steve Kerr or Stephen Curry. I haven’t been around any of them since February, and I won’t be around ’ em all season long. You just feel detached.”
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around Christmas morning,” said Roye, referring to the Warriors’ 11: 30 a. m. game at Milwaukee. “I’ll be getting up really early, making sure I get to Chase Center hours early to prepare, and showing up in basically an empty building. That’s going to be a little bizarre, I think. But at least they’re playing games.”
The NBA has set no specific restrictions about traveling for broadcast crews, knowing that things could change with the arrival of a safe, reliable vaccine. But the league isn’t expecting any broadcasters to travel under the current conditions.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Fitzgerald said. “They’ve got a 45person travel limit on the teams’ charter flights. That’s for coaches, players, some bigtime executives, strength and medical people. I don’t think you want to utilize some of those spaces for broadcasters and production crew. Plus, in trying to come as close as you can to a ‘ bubble’ setup, you need to mitigate the risk of infection. None of us want to be infecting the players, or anything like that, even in a random happenstance. If a basketball team loses four, five guys to the COVID list, you’re probably not going to able to play the game.
“Plus, if you’re not traveling with the team, now you’re flying commercial and putting your own individual health at risk. And we’ll be working with a pretty tight schedule. If you’re doing three games in four nights in three different cities, trying to even keep up with the team would be difficult. We talked to Dave Flemming, all the Giants’ people, and they never had any interest in traveling. This is such a contagious disease, even the most casual kind of innocent interaction could result in somebody being sick. Can you imagine if, say, Giannis Antetokounmpo got infected and you were the reason?”
Left unsettled is the matter of sideline reporters. Kayte ChristensenHunter, who has worked the Sacramento games for NBC Sports California since the 201314 season and is employed by the Kings, confirmed this week that “I will remain doing sidelines this season, as well as increasing my duties as the fulltime pregame, halftime and postgame analyst.”
Things remain a bit murky for Kerith Burke, who replaced Ros GoldOnwude on the Warriors’ NBC Sports Bay Area telecasts in October 2017. Burke is employed not by the Warriors, but by NBC Sports Bay Area. Burke declined to speak for the record, saying only that her role has yet to be specified.
Asked about Burke’s status, Matt Murphy, senior vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Bay Area and California, said in an email that “we are still evaluating our overall Warriors coverage production plans for the entire season. Our primary and continued priority is the safety of our employees and to minimize any risk. Given the circumstances in California and around the country, we will continue to make any necessary production adjustments, as needed.”