Ahead of the upcoming NBA season I thought it’d be fun to catch up with Turner Sports’ Scooter Vertino. We talked Yankees/Red Sox, Astros not getting any primetime love in the LDS, Astros/Red Sox ALCS, hiring Candace Parker, 23 years of opening night NBA double headers on TNT, this year’s opening night and the opening week slate. We talked a lot of NBA and we mostly covered topics casual NBA fans are already familiar with but the interesting thing to me –and I don’t think you even need to listen all that closely — is that the folks producing these telecasts seem much more tuned-in to and interested in various players and their storylines than many of the paid talking heads I see daily on the sports networks. I asked Scooter to pick 3 games he has circled on his calendar outside of opening week that he’s psyched up for (he complied but he’s pretty excited about the whole schedule), the programming on NBA TV (from “The Starters” to Brendan Haywood & David Griffin to the “Players Only” games) and we talked score bugs & graphics & feedback from fans on the production. I also asked Scooter what storyline he’d love to see play out if he could script an NBA season like the WWE. Scooter talked about his local team, the Atlanta Hawks and we talked a little bit about the new/renovated State Farm arena in Atlanta. Finally I asked Scooter for his pre-season picks to make the NBA finals and the ultimate champion. I liked his picks more than my friends at Disney probably will if it comes to pass…
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