I thoroughly enjoy the little things about covering the Phoenix Suns. There are always larger conversations surrounding this team. Short-term and long-term decisions, roster construction, player trajectories, and the overall health of the franchise. But given my naturally meticulous nature, I tend to get caught up in the details that have absolutely no bearing on the actual coverage of the team.
One place that becomes especially apparent is in the design and presentation of the Suns JAM Session Podcast.
If you’ve ever stopped by our YouTube page or listened throughout the season, you know my co-host Matthew Lissy and I, sometimes joined by a rotating cast of special guests, go live after every Suns game. I’ve always preferred doing it that way because we’re capturing the emotion while it’s still fresh. Whatever happened moments earlier is still rattling around in our brains. The excitement is real. The frustration is real. The occasional basketball-induced existential crisis is very real. There’s an authenticity to it because, after all, we’re fans.
We have other podcasts for the broader conversations, ones where we can research, organize our thoughts, and pretend to be responsible adults for an hour. Sometimes you want that. Sometimes you want to crack open a beer and talk about what the hell you just watched.
And if you’ve ever joined one of those postgame podcasts, you’ve probably noticed that every piece of pod art is different. Because while we’re telling the story of the game on the podcast, I want the pod art to tell a story as well. It might not be the sexiest thing in the world, and maybe we sacrifice a few clicks because we aren’t throwing something more obnoxiously eye-catching onto the screen. Everything communicates, though.
As we prepare for our first preseason game tomorrow, I’m reminded that the pod art is another opportunity to tell a story. Another little piece of real estate we can use to communicate something to the people who watch or listen to the show before we ever say a word.
Last season, we started incorporating four statistics into the graphic to showcase each team and where they ranked relative to the rest of the NBA. Being the Suns JAM Session Podcast, we naturally gave it an NBA Jam look. The four attributes were three-pointers, speed, defense, and dunks, representing three-point percentage, pace, defensive rating, and total dunks.
Nothing overly complicated. As the season progressed, you could look at the graphic and immediately get a feel for who the Suns were and who they were playing. Four numbers, a few bars, and suddenly you had a snapshot of the matchup and which areas could ultimately dictate the game.
Well, we’re back for another year, and naturally, I decided to screw around with it.
We’ll continue tracking three-point percentage and pace. This season, I’m replacing defense and dunks with rebound percentage and net rating. Why? Because those are two areas I want to keep an eye on with this team. Net rating gives us a cleaner picture of overall performance by accounting for both offensive and defensive efficiency. Rebound percentage tells us who is actually controlling the glass, something that could become incredibly important for this version of the Suns.
My hope is that this wonderfully mundane graphic, which I will meticulously and somewhat psychotically update before every game, gives our watchers and listeners a little insight into the matchup ahead and the game we’ll inevitably be discussing afterward. This is one of those weird little things I obsess over. Boredom strikes, I find the four statistics, check where Phoenix and its opponent rank, and begin filling or removing those tiny bars next to their names accordingly.
Is this necessary? Absolutely not. Will I do it before every damn game? Absolutely.
So I hope you enjoy it this season. You’ll see the first version ahead of tomorrow’s podcast, and the attributes will begin shifting as the preseason unfolds. Then we’ll wipe the slate clean and start fresh when the Suns open the regular season against the Portland Trail Blazers on October 23.
It’s a tiny detail that carries very little weight in the grand scheme of covering an NBA team. Nobody is winning or losing a game because I moved a bar from a 7 to an 8. And maybe that’s exactly why I enjoy it so very much.
