The Evolution of NBA Player Introductions

One of the best aspects of being an NBA fan over the years has been to enjoy seeing the evolution of NBA player introductions. Here’s a look back at NBA player introductions over the years.

In the old Boston Garden, the player introductions were pretty straightforward. Pretty much what you would expect for the Celtics (Forward to about 2:10 on the video below to see the introduction of the 1984 Celtics):

During Showtime there wasn’t much flash going on with their introductions. Although, I must say that I enjoy the simplicity of these intros much more than I do some of the highly obnoxious pre-game displays we see today.

The Pistons were one of the first teams to get a little funky with their starting line ups, introducing their Bad Boys to the tune of “The Final Countdown” (which they still use today).

Then the game started to change significantly. With the electrifying P.A. announcing of Ray Clay, the Chicago Stadium lights dimmed, and "Sirius" blasting in the background, the Chicago Bulls introductions of the early nineties took the starting line up game to an entirely different level. The Bulls player intros were so good that I would get upset if a Bulls home game was on TNT back then, as they would always pass on showing the introduction of the starters in favor of commercials.

After Clay and the Bulls revolutionized the game, everyone in the league started to follow suit. There were a lot of pretenders out there, but none really could ever hold a candle to Ray. However, I must say that if the Bulls player intros were the best, the New York Knicks probably were right under them. 

Kind of sad to see how electric of a place the Garden used to be. The rabid New York City fans, the Knicks Garden theme ("Drive" by Edd Kalehoff), and Mike Walcheski had that place rocking. The mediocre Knicks now come out to some generic hip-hop music. Maybe the Knicks would start to win again if they went back to the old music? Actually, I don’t even think that magical theme could help that squad. These old Garden intros are so good, I think I might have to throw up another one just for fun. I especially love how Walcheski says “Paaaa-trick Ewing”.

The Sonic also had a pretty darn good player introductions. I know Key Arena was considered small (Thus, the former Sonics move to OKC), but in its day that place got loud! And you have to like any player introduction session that includes Squach and utilizes Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” as its background theme.

Not to be out done, the Bulls stepped up their player introduction game a bit in 1995 when they moved into the state of the art United Center. Here’s Ray clay announcing the Bulls starters during the 1996 NBA Finals:

After the late nineties, player introductions fell off a bit. Everyone tried to capture the Ray Clay model and failed miserably. That changed a bit when Mason arrived as the P.A. man for the new millennium version of the Detroit Bad Boys. He definitely put some fun and originality back into player introductions.

With the arrival of KG, the Celtics also stepped up their player intro game a bit.

I think the key to having good player introductions is to have a quality P.A. man and find a theme that is original timeless (See: the Knicks and "Drive”, the Bulls and “Sirius”, the Pistons and “the Final Countdown”, and the Sonics and “Run Like Hell”). Seeing every team use Kanye West’s Stronger as their theme this year was highly disappointing. I mean, how unoriginal could you be? Plus you know that no team is going to utilize that track beyond one season. 

No matter what teams do, it will be hard for them to conduct player introductions as well as the Knicks and Bulls were conducting their starting line up introductions in the nineties. If teams want to get their crowds hyped, they might want use those productions as the standard to follow.