Some things never change. Ahmad Rashad is interviewing some of the biggest names in basketball on his new show NBA Rewind with Ahmad Rashad.
Some things do change. Rewind is streaming on the NBA app. And most of today’s younger NBA players weren’t around when NBA Inside Stuff was one of the few places where you could see basketball stars off the court and Rashad was the one talking to them.
In Inside Stuff’s heyday on NBC, Rashad would be courtside for games and players would ask when they’d be on the show.
“They’d dribble by me going ‘hey man, when am I going to be on,” Rashad told Broadcasting+Cable. "Each game was like an audition."
These days, if players know who Rashad is, it’s because they saw him with Michael Jordan during The Last Dance, the documentary on Jordan and the Chicago Bulls’ last championship season that was a hit during the pandemic..
On Rewind, named after an Inside Stuff segment, Rashad has conversations with NBA legends like Shaquille O’Neal and Dominique Wilkins as well as current stars such as Steph Curry, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
To produce the show, Rashad has three cameras at his house and the show puts two cameras where the player is. “It looks like we’re in the same room,” he said.
Sometimes the conversation turns to a player's influences. Embiid, for example, learned some of his post moves by watching Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, who came to the U.S. from the same region in Africa.
Modern technology allows Rashad to surprise his subjects by adding Olajuwon and others to join the conversations. ”It’s a very entertaining thing we’re doing,” Rashad said.
Many of today’s players don’t know much about the superstars who were in the association when Inside Stuff was on the air.
“They never saw Magic Johnson play or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar play,” Rashad said. “They grew up in another era.”
Rashad said he feels that it’s impossible to compare today’s players to those that played decades ago. “The sport changes. The people change. The things that make you great changes also,” he said.
Back in the day, Rashad was known for his rapport with Jordan, the league’s top attraction. Will Jordan be on Rewind?
“I think MIke is done after The Last Dance. I think that was his last statement,” Rashad said.
“Everyone talks about who’s the best, him or LeBron [James, who this season set the NBA career scoring record]. Michael’s answer is: ‘We’ll never know. It’s two different eras. We’re never going to play against each other, so who knows,’” Rashad said.
Not too many people remember that before Inside Stuff, Rashad was an All Pro receiver in the National Football League.
“When I started doing television, my goal was to do television so well that people would forget I played football,” he said, “That might have been a mistake, but I’m happy the way it turned out.”
Even his kids are hazy on his career as an athlete. “My daughter came home from school one day,” he recalled. “And she said ‘there’s a guy in my class that wants your autograph. He said you played football. Did you?’”
