I miss NBA Inside Stuff.
For all you youngsters, NBA Inside Stuff was a weekly show on NBC that showed highlights of the previous week’s NBA action, alongside in-depth player features and off the court specials.
The main concept behind NBA Inside Stuff was to appeal to kids and be fun.
It aired every Saturday morning and was sandwiched between (not unlike Doris Burke on the weekend) classic kids programs like Saved By The Bell and California Dreams. The show ran from 1990-2005 and in its best years, was hosted by Ahmad Rashad and Willow Bay who had fantastic chemistry because they were having fun.
Bay was smoking hot. And not in the Doris Burke skanky, used up way. Or the Hannah Storm awkward, cocktail dress at a children’s recital type way. She was classy and cool and could hang with Rashad’s sometimes condescending style.
Rashad was a beast in his own right. He was a 10-year NFL vet and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame and he was great at interviewing players. Because as a former professional athlete, he had their respect.
Every week the show closed with the top ten plays of the week. “Jam Session” was a great feature that showed a montage of the best recent dunks in mixtape fashion with an outstanding soundtrack. 10 year old Paulie E was actually introduced to Prince thanks to this segment.
Another feature was “NBA Rewind” which went through the previous week, day-by-day, showing weird and wild plays and things of note. Like the highlight at :46 showing Kobe Bryant accidentally scoring for the Clippers:
When Summer Sanders took over for Bay, it was essentially the death knell for the program. The understated cool of Bay was replaced with the “laugh because I’m being funny now” antics of Sanders and the show really fell off.
Because of the success, the show got formulaic and boring, eventually moved to Sunday mornings (and no one watched), then to ABC. At ABC the show was rebranded as NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad where it failed.
NBA Inside Stuff, wherever you are, we love you.
