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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the long-running recap, magazine, and highlight show, NBA Action.
Several years ago now, during a discussion in the NLSC Forum, I saw someone refer to “that awful NBA Action show”. I was quite surprised – shocked even – and ready to disagree! As a young fan in the 90s who eagerly anticipated the latest episode of NBA Action every week, I was puzzled to see it described in such unflattering terms. The more I thought about it though, the more it made sense. It was no longer the show it had once been. There was a new host, and new segments. Most importantly, it didn’t have the same relevance in the digital age.
In short, if you weren’t watching NBA Action before the mid to late 2000s, then you didn’t see the show at its peak. Anyone who is accustomed to getting NBA news and highlights on demand may understandably struggle to see its value. It’d be like trying to convince someone who never watched golden age episodes of The Simpsons that it’s one of the best comedies in history. Like The Simpsons though, NBA Action was a must-watch for me in the 90s, and I’m confident that many basketball fans around my age will say the same. Let’s take a look back…way back…
Picture this: outside of NBA Home Video and whatever you’ve happened to record off TV, there’s no on-demand NBA content. The internet is a thing, but not everyone has access to it, and we’re not online 24/7 even if we do. NBA.com has videos, but they’re low resolution and they still take ages to download. There’s NBA news on TV and in the papers, but if you’re from Australia as I am, only the biggest stories get attention in our media, and highlights are scarce. Magazines contain a wealth of information, but most of them only come out monthly. If you don’t have pay TV, you’re probably only getting one game a week. It made me hungry for any NBA coverage I could get.
That’s why NBA Action was so important back then. Even if you could only watch one full game per week, you’d still see plenty of highlights from around the league. Even if you couldn’t jump online, or do so as often as you might like, you could keep up with the latest results, stats, and news. There were player profiles that showed us what life was like as an NBA player; well, the family-friendly side of it, anyway! Viewer emails prompted the producers to do the research in order to provide us with interesting facts and trivia. And of course, every episode of NBA Action concluded in spectacular fashion with the Courtside Countdown, aka the Top 10 Plays of the Week.
This half-hour show provided better, more entertaining basketball coverage than any of the horrible programming we have today. Instead of insipid manufactured debate between paid shills and former NBA scrubs desperate for relevance, it was all about what was actually happening in the league. Players were interviewed and profiled without agendas, thereby introducing fans to their favourite players and promising newcomers. Even if the top teams and stars tended to be in the spotlight more often, every team still got to shine and was treated as worthy of being featured. And, as much as the current day was celebrated, the past was never disrespected as it is now.
Of course, presentation matters, and with a show like NBA Action, that begins with its host. From the very beginning, that was the late, great Jim Fagan, and like Marv Albert, he is one of the voices of basketball for those of us who grew up in the 90s! Pro wrestling fans from that era might also recognise his distinctive baritone from the old WWF Signatures, and unsurprisingly, Fagan had plenty of other voiceover work throughout the years. To me though, his role as the host of NBA Action will always be his most iconic work. Everything about his performance perfectly complemented the fantastic highlights and memorable players that were showcased every week.
Unfortunately, NBA Action wasn’t always on at an ideal time for me. Because neither it nor the Game of the Week aired live on Channel Ten here in Australia, there was some flexibility to show it in whatever timeslot could be found. This resulted in late night airings of both NBA Action and the Game of the Week, so checking the TV guide and setting the VCR became a weekly ritual. I soon learned the importance of ensuring that I had plenty of room on a blank tape, and that I set the recording to start a bit earlier and finish a bit later than the listed times, rather than relying on Channel Ten being precisely on schedule. I didn’t want to miss a single second of basketball!
For me, it was impossible to be disappointed or discouraged after watching an episode of NBA Action. Obviously, being a fan of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls at the height of their dominance is a factor here, since there was seldom any particularly bad news about the team. If nothing else, MJ didn’t miss a single game from 1995 to 1998, so he’d always be featured somewhere on the show! Beyond that though, every recap and highlight reel felt entertaining and important, and every profile made the players seem interesting and worth keeping an eye on. Even if you felt a play should rank lower or higher in the Courtside Countdown, you still loved watching every one.
This exemplifies an aspect of basketball fandom in the 90s that I really miss: joyful passion and appreciation for the sport, and the NBA at large. Famously, the league’s slogan during that era was “I love this game”, and we truly did! That’s not to say that there weren’t any debates or arguments, and there were some ridiculous contrarian opinions out there; I remember the wild letters to the editor in magazines, and some of the early message board posts! Still, there was plenty of positive coverage that didn’t just focus on one team to the insulting exclusion of almost everyone else. We could enjoy the current game without bashing NBA history, or constant rating and ranking.
It would be impossible to comprehensively list all of my favourite memories of watching multiple seasons of NBA Action. There are so many countdowns, and I’ve been delighted to see that people with more foresight than me have preserved them and uploaded those recordings to YouTube. It certainly gives me a lot of nostalgic content to binge! In addition to the Top 10s and Bulls-related highlights and recaps, it was always fun to see bloopers and wacky moments, role players spotlighted after having a big game, updates on the scoring race and other league leaders, and assorted trivia. At the end of the season, the Plays of the Year countdowns were a must-see!
Once I got into creating current roster updates for NBA Live, NBA Action was also a valuable source of information. Not only did it report on all of the big trades, but clips of the players on their new teams would also let me know their new numbers where applicable. Needless to say, I still had to refer to online listings for minor transactions and any details that didn’t happen to be shown on NBA Action, but that was where I heard much of the news first. Even when I did start getting online more often and seeing the news on NBA.com, I still looked forward to the report on NBA Action, since it would be accompanied by highlights and Jim Fagan’s enjoyable narration.
When the lockout of 1998-1999 came into effect, NBA Action actually provided some special episodes to fill the void. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t comment on the labour stoppage itself, but it still gave us something to watch while the league was on hiatus. Many of these episodes included adaptations of segments from various NBA home videos, with Jim Fagan re-recording the original narration. When the lockout ended, those first episodes covered the flurry of player movement that resulted in some strange lineups in what was destined to be a highly unusual season. Sadly, for several years, the 1999 campaign was the last to be shown on free-to-air in Australia.
Some other fond memories of watching NBA Action back in the day included the 1997 “Holding Court” profile of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. It’s bittersweet to reflect on now given their fractured relationship – which frankly is on Pippen – but it was a timely reminder to enjoy the moment, especially with The Last Dance looming. I also remember the segment on Aussie Shane Heal’s then-record setting game for the Timberwolves, the profile of Matt Maloney after he made a surprising impact on the Rockets as a rookie, and the coverage of Dino Radja being traded to Philadelphia, as well as the deal subsequently being rescinded by the 76ers after he failed a physical.
By the time I subscribed to pay TV in 2004, Jim Fagan had wrapped up his fourteen year stint as the host of NBA Action, with duties going to Ian Eagle, Spero Dedes, and Rich Ackerman. They’ve done an admirable job, but Jim Fagan was a tough act to follow. It didn’t help that the show went from providing comprehensive weekly recaps to heavily focusing on just one Eastern team and one Western team per episode. I still watched it out of nostalgia for what it had once been, but if someone saw it for the first time in the mid 2000s, I can understand why they’d think it was lacklustre. The digital age brought about much faster ways to get NBA news, stats, and highlights.
Back in the 90s however, it was essential viewing for hardcore basketball fans. Shows like NBA Inside Stuff were great too, but I always preferred NBA Action because it was…well, action-oriented! I can say without any reservation that it was a far more enjoyable and informative introduction to the NBA and the world of basketball than talk shows and online discourse are now, and I’m so grateful that it was a part of my burgeoning hoops fandom. It may sound corny today – “cringe” even – but just as the NBA’s slogan of “I love this game!” was apt, when you heard Jim Fagan’s cry of “You gotta love that action!” in the intro of every episode, truer words were never spoken.
