Throwback Tuesday on NBC!!!<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take it back to the 1990s. Old school graphics! Bob Costas, Doug Collins, Mike Fratello and Hannah Storm!<\/p>\n
Nothing wrong with that. The legends deserve their shine, right? Don\u2019t we all like to relive the glory days?<\/p>\n
This should have been something I couldn\u2019t wait to watch. I\u2019m somewhat old school in a few ways. I love my throwback jerseys. I own so many jerseys from my youth I\u2019ve lost count. I snatch up retro sneakers whenever possible. Nostalgia is a big part of what I enjoy.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m stuck in a world of pagers, phone books and portable CD players.<\/p>\n
Ultimately I watch the games if they\u2019re going to be good or there\u2019s some intrigue. I wouldn\u2019t have tuned in to San Antonio\u2019s 131-91 rout of shorthanded Philadelphia if I hadn\u2019t been tasked to check in on the retro broadcast.<\/p>\n
The novelty of hearing the old broadcasters couldn\u2019t keep me interested in the game. And when it comes to the games overall, I care about 2026.<\/p>\n
Even someone who grew up in the 1990s and still listens to his \u201990s music can take only so much of old basketball being highlighted during a game in 2026.<\/p>\n
I understand the fascination with the old NBC on some level and why many fans were happy to see the network airing games.<\/p>\n
Those were some great times. Michael Jordan\u2019s two three-peats. The Lakers\u2019 three-peat. NBC aired some classic moments in NBA history. But the NBA didn\u2019t cease to exist when the NBA stopped airing games in 2002, and a game only needs so many flashbacks.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only so much nostalgia I want from NBC well past the midway point of the season. The network already got over on us once with nostalgia when it\u2019s announcement of Jordan as a contributor to its coverage this season turned out to be the network microdosing one interview over a few weeks.<\/p>\n
Bring back Costas and company for some games? Fine. Using the old graphics? No biggie. I even get a kick out of that when playing NBA 2K26 and seeing old-school presentations.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not even against flashbacks to the old days occasionally. It just felt excessive during the Spurs-Sixers. In a game that featured Victor Wembanyama, Tyrese Maxey, De\u2019Aaron Fox and other emerging stars, I wasn\u2019t clamoring for highlights of Shawn Kemp against Vlade Divac.<\/p>\n
There is so much to like about today\u2019s NBA, but too often in basketball we pretend everyone enjoyed watching teams score 80 points over four quarters. Yes, there were great moments, but the evolution of the game has been great and should be celebrated.<\/p>\n
Old-school graphics are great. I wouldn\u2019t be mad if the teams playing wore uniforms from the \u201990s on these nights, either.<\/p>\n
But if we\u2019re going to have throwback nights, let\u2019s not get so stuck on the past when none of the league\u2019s players ever played on NBC before this season \u2014 and many weren\u2019t even born the last time the league was on NBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Throwback Tuesday on NBC!!! Let\u2019s take it back to the 1990s. Old school graphics! Bob Costas, Doug Collins,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,2284,6,207,474],"class_list":{"0":"post-638703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","12":"tag-san-antonio-spurs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116170685347444028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}