NBC host slams NBA star

Mike Tirico’s NBA on NBC debut might be more than a year away, but he gave basketball fans a sampling of his play-by-play Tuesday afternoon during the Olympics.

With Tirico hosting the 2024 Paris Olympics for NBC, he attempted to throw the coverage to to the Germany-Brazil men’s basketball game. But after realizing there was no one calling the game, Tirico quickly jumped in and handled the commentary himself.

“Well, we try to give you guys a moment here on NBC, but apparently, no one’s chatting,” Tirico said with surprise.

And while taking on the roles of play-by-play announcer and analyst, Tirico displayed a little bit of that scathing Johnny Miller commentary that Tom Brady hopes to emulate for Fox. Unfortunately for Dennis Schröder, he was the culprit. As Tirico highlighted Germany’s NBA talent on their Olympic roster, Schröder committed a turnover.

“That’s a vintage wraparound pass,” Tirico said with a chuckle. “As often like some of the Schröder feeds, end up in turnovers.”

Yikes! His 2.3 turnovers per game average isn’t great, but Schröder ranked 68th last season in turnovers per 36 minutes and 99th the season before. That might not be worthy of getting called out for regularly throwing the ball away on the national stage during the Olympics. But we can still appreciate Tirico’s candor.

Maybe this is a sign of things to come for NBA fans who were concerned about whether NBC’s buttoned-up nature would be a good potential fit for Charles Barkley’s bold commentary. Tirico is just trying to set the stage for that type of NBA analysis over at NBC.

With the recent news that NBC has landed the NBA’s “B” package of games beginning in the 2025-26 season, the network has already stated that Tirico is expected to be their “A” play-by-play voice. Tirco called NBA and college basketball games for years on ESPN before joining NBC in 2016, allowing himself to be well-versed in Schröder’s turnover tendencies.

[ NBC ]

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