Kevin Harlan Reveals New Approach to His Schedule in Move to Amazon

Welcome to 'Ask Jimmy,' where SI Media writer Jimmy Traina will answer one question about a burning topic from the sports media world.

Q: Kevin Harlan will be taking on a lighter NBA workload as he moves to Amazon, he revealed Monday while joining the Sports Media Watch Podcast. The longtime broadcaster, coming off nearly three decades calling NBA games for TNT, said he "purposely constructed" the arrangement.

“Quite frankly, at the end of the TNT run, I was pretty satisfied with where I was in terms of filling that great desire to be with the league, Harlan said. "I thought this might be a good place to rest … I had been doing Sunday, Monday [NFL games] and Tuesday for Turner — and on some weeks, multiple games — and then a schedule that lasted into June, and I was just ready to kind of pull back a little bit.”

Jimmy, what do you take away from this move?

While less of Kevin Harlan is never a good thing, this won’t be as drastic as it sounds.

According to Harlan, who signed a three-year deal with Amazon, he will call one game in October, one game in November and one in December before working a regular schedule beginning in January.

While Harlan is as good as ever working NBA and NFL games, it’s more than understandable that he would want a lighter schedule given that he calls an NFL game for CBS each Sunday and then does the Monday Night Football game for Westwood One radio.

In addition, for his last few years at TNT, Harlan was the network’s lead voice, so it was important for him to work as many games as possible. At Amazon, Ian Eagle is the streamer’s No. 1 play-by-play voice. So again, Harlan working a lighter schedule isn’t as awful as the headlines might seem.

And this is the right way to do a lighter schedule. The NBA, as well as every other sport, will always be on the backburner while the NFL is in-season. It’s not a coincidence that Harlan will pick up his schedule in January as the NFL regular season comes to a close.

The time we need Harlan the most is in the playoffs. Having less Harlan calling meaningless regular season games in October, November and December is an acceptable sacrifice as long as we can get as much of the man with the best pipes in the business during the postseason.

There should be plenty of nights when the playoffs begin that will see Ian Eagle calling a 7 p.m. ET game followed by Harlan calling a 10 p.m. ET game. That’s a huge win for Amazon and its viewers.

So don’t sweat the fact that will see a little less of Harlan in those early months of the regular season that goes on forever.