The NBA will lose an iconic voice later this year, as Hall of Fame broadcaster Marv Albert is retiring at the conclusion of the NBA’s postseason, as reported by Andrew Marchand and Phil Mushnick of The New York Post. Albert and Turner Sports put out an official announcement today confirming the decision.
Albert, who will turn 80 in June, began calling NBA games in the 1960s and was the longtime voice of the Knicks. He also called the NBA Finals for NBC for many years. This year’s Eastern Conference Finals will be his last series as a broadcaster.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- In the wake of EuroLeague standouts like Luca Vildoza, Gabriel Deck, and Mike James signing late-season NBA contracts, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype explored whether those in-season arrivals from Europe’s top league could become a trend going forward or whether they’re just a byproduct of the NBA’s unusual 2020/21 schedule.
- There’s a growing expectation that longtime NBA forward Luis Scola will officially retire as a player after he represents Argentina in this year’s Olympics, per a report from La Prealpina in Italy (hat tip to Sportando). Scola, who played for Varese in Italy in 2020/21, could end up returning to the club in a management role.
- In an Insider-only article for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks breaks down the key dates and deadlines to watch during the coming NBA offseason.
Marv Albert was lucky to have had his scandal before the #metoo era. If his sex scandal had happened today, there is no way he would have ever worked a game again, let alone had another 20+ years at it. Back then, he just basically got a two year suspension where he worked for a different company, then was hired back. Maybe it will be the same today, but it just seems different now.
You’re dead on. Basically nothing happened to him. Thankfully society is slowly fixing this broken system that allows criminals like him to slip through the cracks. America deserves Cancel Culture, because they literally never had a way to keep celebs in check and people like Albert were allowed to keep on doing exactly what they were doing before.
So many of these commentators need to retire. They’re like dinosaurs.
Dude SO many. It’s almost like if you own a sports franchise, it’s a must-have: “Ok, need to have a senior citizen on the tv commentary team, check”. Worst part is they are all terrible at the job, the only good senior citizen commentator was Vin Scully.
Also makes zero sense if youre trying to market the game to young people, but being as these same old people are the ones who refuse to retire who are the ones literally blocking young people from a job they desperately need to have money to be marketed to in the first place (all these old guys are also millionaires, none of them even need a job), so teams are marketing to seniors first, ugh.
He got a suspended sentence and right back to work.
What a joke!
Steph Curry got a $50,000 fine because he threw his own mouthguard on the ground and it bounced -near- a referee. NBA forever pathetic at not knowing the right thing to do the first time.
He sucks on that mouthguard like it’s a pacifier. Get little Steph his binky.