NBA

Dwyane Wade is in the booth for Olympic basketball. Does he have the chops to do it full time?

“I’ve got my pen, I’ve got my head down, I’m in these papers, I’m doing my work.’’

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

August 1, 2024

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The United States men’s basketball team is such a juggernaut that during its opening victory Sunday over Serbia, Jayson Tatum essentially was relegated to the bystander role Svi Mykhailiuk played — or didn’t play, if we’re being literal — for the champion Celtics this past season.

In Team USA’s 103-86 victory over South Sudan on Wednesday, it was Joel Embiid who took a seat, while Tatum got the start. This roster’s riches? Beyond abundant.

Yet for their preposterous talent, there is still room for improvement.

South Sudan threatened an all-timer of an upset in a pre-Olympic exhibition game before LeBron James hoisted the United States to a 101-100 victory.

South Sudan remained feisty Wednesday, but feistiness didn’t result in much suspense. The Americans took a 19-point lead into halftime and mostly glided from there.

Yes, that counts as progress. Here’s hoping that progress continues to translate from the court to courtside, and NBC’s broadcasts of Team USA’s games keep improving as well.

There’s no reason why they shouldn’t. Noah Eagle is an easy listen as a play-by-play broadcaster, and no qualifier such as “for someone so young” — he’s 26 — is necessary. He already has an array of comfortable calls for made baskets (I especially liked “[Devin] Booker laces it from downtown!”).

It’s amusing that his cadence makes him sound more like Jim Nantz than his accomplished dad, Ian, but he’s someone we’ll be hearing calling big games for decades to come.

Dwyane Wade, the color analyst, is a novice, but should have one significant advantage: he has been an Olympian, a gold-medal winner, and a peer of Team USA’s older core of James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry. He is one of the few people who can relate to what Team USA’s players are experiencing.

Yet in tandem, Eagle and Wade are a work in progress. That’s understandable given that they’ve been partners for roughly a week. But given the interest and magnitude of Team USA’s games, they are obligated to improve, fast.

That first broadcast on Sunday felt like . . . a first broadcast. Coach Steve Kerr’s unexpected decision to sit Tatum has more juice in Boston, of course, but it was mentioned only briefly by the announcers.

Wade also has a habit, probably a nervous one, of laughing after virtually any observation, which became grating well before the halftime break. I was disheartened Wednesday to realize that he hadn’t tempered the chronic chuckles at all.

In the first game, he made one major rookie mistake: attempting a catchphrase that definitely required further workshopping, if not outright abandonment.

When Durant buried a barrage of shots in the second quarter, Wade declared, “America, y’all know him as Kevin Durant. I know him personally. His pronouns are he/him.”

He said the same thing, save for a different name, on a James highlight later in the game. It didn’t work any better the second time.

Part of the issue in the first game is that Eagle deferred to Wade much in the same way Drew Carter did to Brian Scalabrine when he first began calling Celtics games. That sometimes leads to jocularity spilling into moments when the action needs to be called.

In most Olympic sports, particularly the obscure ones, the analyst has to be the star because explanations of tactics and techniques are required.

With basketball, where the stars and storylines are so familiar, play-by-play should still drive the broadcast, especially when the action passes so quickly in 40-minute Olympic games.

Wade would be at his best offering I’ve-been-there insight, anecdotes about his time as an Olympian, and brief explanations of why something is working or why it is not.

They were better Wednesday. Wade was still a serial laugher, but he did not test-drive a single catchphrase, and conversation with Eagle was more comfortable and flowing.

Wade’s best moment came midway through the third quarter, when he pointed out after Derrick White got clobbered on a screen that a teammate (we’ll ignore that it was Jrue Holiday) left him in harm’s way.

“That’s when you’ve got to get on your teammate,’’ said Wade, as White checked the inventory on his body parts. “You’ve got to get on your teammate. [Your teammate has] got to call it out early. He’s got to scream it to you that it’s coming.”

There’s a long list of superstar athletes who were mediocre-at-best analysts, but there are real signs that Wade wants to get better.

At one point in the opener, Eagle noted that Curry had asked Wade if he was doing his homework after he spotted him studying up on rosters and statistics.

“I’ve got my pen, I’ve got my head down, I’m in these papers, I’m doing my work,’’ said Wade.

We saw and heard incremental benefits of that on Wednesday. But the proof of real progress will come later on, if they can make their final broadcast of the Olympics their best one.