
This Q&A first appeared on Open Floor, Sports Illustrated’s free NBA newsletter. Subscribe today to get exclusive content from Chris Mannix twice per week.
Kevin Harlan has been calling NBA games so long, his broadcasting career began in a city that no longer has a team. In 1982, Harlan, fresh out of the University of Kansas, was hired as a voice of the Kansas City Kings, tasked with calling Cotton Fitzsimmons’s fast-paced team that was winding down its final years in the Midwest before an eventual move to Sacramento. That began a 38-year run in NBA broadcasting that Harlan thought may have been over after last season, when Turner Sports, Harlan’s home for the last three decades, wrapped up its run.