In 2019, Adam Lefkoe became the host of TNT’s Tuesday night NBA studio show with Dwyane Wade, Candace Parker, and Shaquille O’Neal. While Lefkoe is still with Bleacher Report, a place he was at since 2013, he has cut down on the amount of shows he does for B/R to put a lot of focus into hosting the Tuesday show.
Lefkoe was a guest on The Press Box podcast with Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker and he said that he always thought Inside The NBA was the “pinnacle of sports television,” but he thought his first true moment with Turner Sports was when he hosted the pregame show for The Match: Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson in 2018.
Before he started hosting the Tuesday night show, Lefkoe told Curtis and Shoemaker that he heard from Dan Patrick, who gave him some advice that has stuck with him.
“He said ‘Lefkoe, be John Stockton. We don’t need 20 out of you, but if you can get us 15 assists, that’s really what it is all about.’ There’s nothing sweeter than throwing an alley-oop when you are hosting a show like that.
“I know Ernie Johnson has told me that he is, on purpose, the worst traffic controller. He is trying to create accidents. I think that is something that I learned from him. When I am in the back, in the green room, which I think is the greatest place to watch basketball in the world, when I hear an argument, it is my duty to start that argument again when I get on set and to not let them know I’m doing it.”
When he hosts the show, Lefkoe knows the crew he works with and knows when to go to them for specific reasons throughout the broadcast and how to make them succeed:
“I think Wade tells great stories. I might be texting with him and hanging out with him that week and go over for dinner and I know he’s got a really great personal story about Russell Westbrook or Donovan Mitchell, I’m getting him to that story eventually.”
“With Candace, if I see her in the back and she kind of puts her hands up or sighs, I note what it is. I’m not going to tell her, but I’m getting her there when the show starts. With Shaq, it’s ‘Shaq wants to go viral’. How can I get Shaq to go viral this week because that’s what he needs.”
Lefkoe knows the importance of being a good researcher in addition to hosting. He told Curtis and Shoemaker that when he talked with Jayson Stark (who is a family friend) years ago, he remembered Stark had a journal for every MLB team that when he heard a stat about that team that was interesting, he put in that journal. That’s when Lefkoe knew what he needed to do to succeed in this business.
“When I made the transition from a lot of NFL to mainly all-NBA, I read an article and a column from every team every day over a four-month period. The stuff I knew about the Portland Trail Blazers’ salary cap constrictions in that one year was nuts…If you don’t enjoy studying and reading and you think you can just go on TV and go ‘Pistons…remember Grant Hill’. If you think you are going to pull that off, you are going to get eviscerated.”
So, when you watch Lefkoe host NBA coverage on TNT, he knows how to make his team succeed and he is going to put in the work to make sure your team is well-represented. However, he cares more about the feedback from the talent he works with than anything else.
“As long as the talent that I’m with is enjoying the experience, that’s what I think a host role is. You can’t control the answers and stories, but did it feel different than all the other interviewers that they had. I would find my feedback in the talent that I work with.”
