Gratitude in Grief: Hanif Abdurraqib and Inside the NBA
Guest Writer: Annaka Saari
If you know us at Flagrant Mag at all, you know we’re huge Hanif heads (buy Issue 06 to read about Hanif from the perspective of his friend and collaborator, Kasey Anderson). You also know we’re divided on the quality of content provided by Inside the NBA, but despite having mixed feelings about Kenny and Shaq (everybody loves Chuck, and Ernie is kinda just a guy), we are all feeling a bit bereft at this loss. It’s tough to trust that any network execs will fill the size 25 shoes with a crew that has comparable whimsy. Guest writer Annaka Saari writes about this below.
-Flagrant Mag
Gratitude in Grief: Hanif Abdurraqib and Inside the NBA
Of all the memories I have in this life, my favorite may be this: my five-year-old body tucked into the crook of my father’s arm, bowls of artificial butter-drenched popcorn on our laps, the Detroit Pistons gleaming in low-resolution from the television in our living room. Moments away from upsetting the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal-led Los Angeles Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals, the Pistons’ white uniforms cut across the screen like any coach’s dream: a symphony of role-players, a showcase of unbelievable grit and poise. At one point, my father tried to explain to me how tall Shaq was, shattering my notion that the man next to me on the couch was the tallest man in the world. At the final buzzer, he lifted my arms up into the air as we both cheered, the elation of my team’s win flurrying through my little chest.
So much of the joy of basketball is in the witnessing of ascension: the drama of LeBron James’s journey from high school phenom to Ohio hero, the unlikely climb of Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks past the Miami Heat’s big three in 2011, the Toronto Raptors’ slaying of the seemingly unbeatable Golden State Warriors in 2019. This focus on winning often eclipses analysis of loss, of the anguish that accompanies every successful team’s necessary descent from the throne, the mourning that follows the end of any good thing. There is perhaps no better contemporary writer of grief than poet, essayist, cultural critic, and Minnesota Timberwolves fan Hanif Abdurraqib.
Among the things I admire most about Abdurraqib’s writing is his ability to approach grief as a wholistic, multifaceted experience; the loss present in his newest book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension is grounded in sadness, certainly, but also in the joy of memory, in gratitude for having had something or someone difficult to lose. Weaving through discussion of diverse subjects under Abdurraqib’s masterful and empathetic hand – the chosen-one lore of youngest sons in basketball-playing families, 1997 Ohio Mr. Basketball Kenny Gregory, LeBron James’s ascent in comparison to Abdurraqib’s own – the book manages to be about basketball, yes, but also about mortality, home and what it means to leave it, identity, and beauty. It’s about time, and about what time gives and must, necessarily, take.
There’s Always This Year, separated into quarters like a basketball game and interspersed with time outs, begins with a “Pregame” prologue. In it, Abdurraqib grapples with, among other things, the loss of the Fab Five as he and the world came to know them, first leading us to famous images of the young men in their freshman year, including a famous snapshot from the Detroit Free Press: “...here they do not look bereft of joy. They look mostly like teenagers. Certain of their own invincibility because no one has come correct enough with anything to make them uncertain.” Later, he writes of Jalen Rose and Chris Webber: “My vision begins to blur, trying to figure out the math of it all. The two friends don’t talk much anymore. The intensity of their years-long feud waxes and wanes, sometimes punctuated by a brief, awkward interaction. It feels important for me to be honest about this here — this insurmountable rupture between the two.” And even later: “I loved you // I’m sorry // I loved you.” Even now, as the Fab Five’s Final Four banners rot away in some Ann Arbor, Michigan storage facility, the memory of their excellence remains present, sharp.
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The Wall Street Journal, as well as many other media outlets, have reported that the NBA is nearing a deal with NBC, Amazon, and NBC that would, for the first time since 1989, leave TNT without claim to NBA broadcasting rights following the conclusion of the 2024-2025 NBA season. Basketball fans on social media and beyond have begun to fear what this will mean for the much-beloved Inside the NBA, the studio show that serves up TNT’s halftime and post-game commentary with a four-member, core cast (and occasional fill-ins from other TNT analysts as needed); holding down the studio on the day-to-day are host Ernie Johnson and analysts Kenny “The Jet” Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal.
Inside the NBA has indisputably become a staple of the United States sports culture, as well as a thread of American popular culture at-large. A clip of Barkley insulting Shaq or of Smith tripping on one of his frequent trips to the highlight board can spread across the internet in seconds, finding its way into group chats and conversations between basketball fans across the world. Comedian Bill Hader, in an episode of the show’s accompanying podcast The Steam Room, stated “Inside the NBA – that gets passed around by comedy people, because you guys are so funny. I have friends who are in comedy who aren’t even basketball fans, and they’ll send me clips of your guys’ show ‘cause the comedy is so genuine.” A video of comic Kevin Hart portraying all members of the cast while promoting Think Like a Man Too went viral a decade ago, his over-the-top impressions veering into the hilarity of the absurd. Saturday Night Live – in sketches including both Hader and Hart – has hosted multiple parodies of the show, at one point featuring Barkley’s portrayal of Shaq. The influence of the show has even entered the realm of animation: in a dream-sequence intro to an episode of The Boondocks, Ernie Johnson claps back against Barkley’s criticism of Riley Freeman, an NBA superstar in the dream, saying “Now Charles, it seems to me that you're hatin' on Riley because he stacks paper to the ceiling and rides on 24-inch chrome.”
Inside the NBA’s mark on American sports media and on Americans’ experiences of professional basketball is indelible and unquestionably a triumph. The show manages to make commentary both engaging and entertaining, a balance that has led to critical acclaim and nineteen Sports Emmy Awards. Losing Inside the NBA would, undoubtedly, lead to widespread lament from sports fans and create a noticeable void in the basketball broadcasting landscape. As more and more time passes by without an official announcement, the horizon of the show’s end seems a less and less distant reality. Even as the future of the show itself remains uncertain, it seems the chemistry of the cast will be permanently altered: Charles Barkley has announced that he will not move to another network and that he intends to retire at the end of next season.
***
Another memory: my father, oldest brother, and I huddled around my kitchen table, laughing so hard tears were running down our faces. On a laptop in front of us, an Inside the NBA clip: Shaq listening to a fabricated list of the best NBA big men of all time being read aloud, waiting for his name to be called. As the rankings move further down the list, he becomes progressively more upset; upon hearing the name of Seattle Supersonics Hall-of-Famer Jack Sikma mentioned before his own, he cannot contain his frustration anymore, exclaiming, along with the other analysts, the other center’s name and springing from his seat, unable to settle back in until it is revealed that the list was an April Fool’s joke. To this day, when one of us feels we’re being done wrong, overlooked, or underestimated, my father, brother, and I can be trusted to exclaim “Jack Sikma!” while feigning outrage, our joy mixing in the air.
In a recent episode of The Steam Room, Barkley asked Abdurraqib to reflect on the successes of his career and on his own ascension. He answered: “I think to align myself towards gratitude always and be really thankful, you know.” I hope to have the discipline to do the same as the cameras pan out from Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith for the last time, to remember the smiles on my father and brother’s faces as we struggled to breathe between laughs and be thankful for what has been. On the last page of There’s Always This Year’s “Pregame,” Abdurraqib writes: “...but absence requires an understanding of what should be. What was once…Impermanence was the altar I was leading us to this entire time.” Whether we want to or not, we’ll all, someday, have to settle in for worship there.
Annaka Saari is an award-winning writer and administrator for the Creative Writing Program at Boston University.
This was dope, thank you for sharing!
LOVE this!!! Love Hanif!!