Mark Jackson has been calling NBA Finals games on ABC with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy for 15 years. As with many iconic booths, people inside and outside the industry might ask what is the key to being successful for that many years in the booth.
Jackson was a guest on The Dave Pasch Podcast last week and he told Pasch that what people see and hear when they call a game is similar to what you would see with them when they aren’t at the arena.
“What you see and what you hear during the course of a game is the same thing as you’d see and hear over the course of dinner with all of us. We get along incredibly well and they are family for life.”
Jackson mentioned that when he learned that he was going to call the NBA Finals with Breen and Van Gundy, he thought it was incredible and the three of them along with Lisa Salters have a great relationship.
“When I got the opportunity to call NBA Finals with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy, it was an incredible thing to learn knowing the history of the game, knowing the history of incredible booths not just in basketball but in sports in general. Never would I have imagined that we’d be doing it at this point and have so many under our belt, but It’s a credit to the greatness of those two guys, the friendship that we have on-and-off the court. I’m honored to be in a booth with those guys along with Lisa Salters. It’s an incredible grouping.”
So, what is the key to their success? Jackson says it’s because none of the three of them have an ego and they don’t care if one person gets more attention or gets to say more than the other.
“Even though I would say I credit us knowing each other beforehand has a lot to do with it, I would then crazy as it sounds say that it has nothing to do with it. What I mean by that is there are people that have been in booths and known each other longer than we’ve known each other and known each other as much as we know each other. But, the thing is we have no ego. I’ve seen booths get torn apart because of egos, because somebody said something or somebody doesn’t have enough time, or somebody gets jealous of the attention.
“We could care less about who gets the attention. We are there to call the game and cover it and do the best that we possibly can do. There is nothing that Jeff Van Gundy or Mike Breen can say to me that I would take offense to because I know those guys love me and they know I love them. It’s a unique situation, a unique booth where family trumps all.”
