Suns’ fans have been fortunate to enjoy a great history of radio and television coverage. For the last 25 years, Kevin Ray has built his chapter of this legacy with the TV crew and now starts his tenth year as our eyes and ears during games.
In a video interview Friday, I asked him a range of questions about his best memories, how they prepare for the season and individual broadcasts, that day’s breaking Mark Williams news, this year’s team, and yes, even the “BoomRoom”, his patented signature call
for special dunks. For what it’s worth, he’s an even “better dude” in person than what you already see on television. Responsive, thorough, willing to spend the time, and sending more thoughts back that evening. Enjoy his stories below.
Broadcasting Memories and Process
There’s been a lot of high points on the court. But what’s one that’s special to you that’s maybe not the obvious one?
Kevin Ray: Oh, there’s a handful, aside from that magical run to the Finals. Getting to call Booker’s scoring mark a few years ago in Portland certainly sits right up there at the top for me as a broadcaster, on any sport or any team, when you have those moments, those milestone and historical moments, it’s something that we all aspire to be a part of.
Unfortunately, on the local TV side, we don’t get to do playoff basketball anymore. So those kinds of moments become even more significant because, and we’ve talked about this in the industry for a number of years now, it is the one true downside of doing local TV. You don’t get a chance to do the biggest games and potentially call the biggest moments in a franchise’s history. When those kinds of moments and situations come up and develop, you really lean into them more so than ever before.
Getting to call that game with Book, setting the scoring mark. Also, his game-winner in the Bubble will certainly stand out for a number of reasons. One, just because of what it meant for the team, but the unique situation that we were in: broadcasting remotely, and we were doing the games in as unique a setup, and every team experienced it.
But we were in the old Suns Athletic Club, which is just there adjacent to the arena. We had multiple kinds of broadcast setups with the pregame setup. EJ and I were calling basically from, we kind of laughed, like a janitor’s closet. They were trying to set it up and soundproof it as much as possible, so we’re doing that game broadcast from this little room and trying to pull in and create the kind of energy that you might experience if you’re a sold-out arena. Those are two that definitely stand out.
You’re the eyes and ears to so many fans. With the NBA League Pass, you play that role for 29 other teams’ fans too. Given that responsibility, can you walk through some of the things you do to prepare for both the season and then for individual broadcasts?
Kevin Ray: It’s really kind of a matter of paying attention to the draft, depending on who they draft, how many draft picks they’ve got. I will typically try to watch some of the Summer League games just to get kind of an early page on players and get a feel.
And then you start paying attention to NBA free agency. And even if your team doesn’t appear to be in the market in NBA free agency, I always pay close attention to it just based on who’s going where, so you can kind of get an early thumbnail of, like, okay, this guy is moving from this team. For instance, LeBron James going from the Lakers: we would encounter LeBron four or five times a season, sometimes six, because we played them twice in the preseason a couple years, and then you’d face them four times in the regular season, and now, here we are, we’ll see LeBron only twice, with only one of those being in the Valley. So always pay close attention to NBA free agency, and any kind of injury news that may pop up.
I will also go back and will typically try and review some game broadcasts from the previous year as we get closer to this season. I like to go back and rewatch some of our broadcasts and just kind of pick up on things, anything that I’ve missed, anything that I wanted to improve upon. It also provides an opportunity for me to sit down with our directors and producers if there’s an idea that might pop into our head for an endgame element that we might incorporate or something in the pregame. I will often do that.
And then, that kind of leads up to the season in training camp, and then as far as the game broadcast goes, it’s pretty much the same, although it will vary from time to time, depending on if we’re on the road. Let’s say we’ve arrived in a city at 2AM, and you’ve got a game that night. It’s a back-to-back situation. Your prep is kind of tweaked in that regard. I’ll start, depending on the schedule again, semi-prepping the night before. Let’s say the opponent that we’re playing is playing the night before. I will jump on NBA League Pass and try to watch that game if the schedule allows. That gives me live action that I can reference.
Then typically, the morning of the game, I’ll get up, and first thing I typically do is try to read through some of the stories, like you guys put out there on the Bright Side of the Sun.
I’ll try to go into any of the different platforms that might have game previews or specific stories written for the Suns, a specific player, the matchup, and then I’ll do the same thing for the opponent, whether you’re going to their local newspaper, or it is often the case, so many teams have different platforms available where you’re able to get content.
The stats are readily available to anybody and everybody. You can get all the stats that you want. So, for me, I really try to find off-court news, notes, anything that can personalize a player for the fan. Because I think that goes a long way in finding out who this guy is as a person, and kind of reminding the fans as well. You can highlight how well-rounded they are, and you maybe find a story about, “Wow, this is how he spends his offseason; he’s working on the New York Stock Exchange”, things like that. I think those are important little notes and nuggets that, for me, I enjoy being able to share with the fans because that’s the kind of stuff that isn’t always something that the fans have time to go find. It’s just something that they can kind of file away and get a better understanding of who this player is, what their mental makeup is, and maybe why they’re so important to their team, aside from the fact that they’re a 20-point scorer.
I tell people, I prep right up until tip time, basically. And we have these devices; I can go on Twitter, I can go on Instagram, because you will oftentimes get those little late tips and nuggets that a beat reporter may have just sent out. So that becomes part of my prep as well.
And then beyond those stories, then it’s a matter of putting together my game boards, and those boards consist of the Suns roster, all the stats there, same thing for the opponent. I do have a service that I use. In fact, it’s a service that, I would say, probably 80% of the guys in the league use it and it’s the old adage, ‘work smarter, not harder’. And it’s a company, and basically what they do is they will put together your game board with the player’s name, height, weight, a lot of the, as I call it, the minutiae, that can take a lot of time. And if you’ve got to do that every single game.
They will provide the template and format, and then they will also customize it for you. If there’s specific things that you want on those game boards, they’ll plug that in for you. And then I will typically get those midday, and then at that point, I can download them, and I can then start editing myself so that I can add some of those stories and notes and any stats that they may not have gotten put on the board. And some of those, I’ll type in my computer. Other times, I’ll handwrite them in, and then print them off, and that’s what I use to do each game.
It’s all kind of customized. Every broadcaster is a little different on how they do their boards. For me, I’m a big color guy, so that’s why I will highlight things, and the names and numbers will be in a certain color. I might have their season stats in red. Once I get those boards done, then it’s a matter of sitting down and looking at them and going over them because much of it you try to commit to memory so that you’re not constantly looking down in the course of the game. Because at the speed the game is played, you don’t really have that much time. It’s just kind of a quick reference. You know where that note is on Dillon Brooks, and those are the things that I try to process throughout the course of the day, so that when I get to the arena, it’s more top of mind than it is looking down and specifically reading.
We get into a situation where there’s a dead ball or a free throw, and that gives me a time to look down and say, “Okay, yeah, this next trip, I want to make sure I bring this up.” Or, “At some point here in the first quarter, I want to make sure that I get that.”
I know there’s the announcement that Eddie Johnson is taking a step back this season. How do you make that seem so seamless from one color commentator to another?
Kevin Ray: Yeah, it really comes down to my broadcast partners, like our entire broadcast team, our director, producer, our graphics people; we have been really fortunate and blessed to have really the same crew for 25 years. Even going back to when I first started doing the pregame and postgame show, we are probably one of the few teams in the league that has not had a massive amount of turnover. And that in itself goes such a long way in what I feel like gets brought out in the broadcast to where the fans just feel comfortable, right? It’s like your favorite pair of jeans or your favorite shoes. They just feel different. They feel right versus anything else.
I worked with Annie on Phoenix Mercury broadcasts, and she is a dear friend. Same thing with EJ. I’ve worked with EJ in one capacity or another now for 25 years. Then a handful of other broadcasters that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with. And so, we really do just have a tight-knit group. It is a group that we take our work serious, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We have the ability to laugh with one another and laugh at ourselves a little bit. I think that setting, that kind of family camaraderie that we’ve been able to build, I take a lot of pride in being able to convey that in our broadcasts. And I think it’s one of the reasons why I do feel like I’ve been able to kind of work seamlessly with any of the new partners that I’ve had.
Is there a funny story that’s shareable, but not widely known?
Kevin Ray: As you know, EJ and I like to go with one another from time to time. And there was one time — I think it was after a game — we oftentimes get meals served there on the plane. EJ had on one of his fine Italian shirts, and I don’t recall what the meal was, but I do remember pulling out one of the linen napkins, and I tucked it into his collar. So that he would not make any kind of a mess. And the flight attendant and some of our crew got a pretty good laugh out of it.
But I think traveling as much as we do together, and experiencing some of those long days and early morning arrivals, we have weathered a lot as a group, and that story just kind of speaks to how close all of us are.
This Year’s Team
Switching to the team on the court, we recently found out Mark Williams would be out for significant time. Any initial thoughts on this and the team?
Kevin Ray: Yeah, it’s unfortunate. You like to think you can get through an offseason without any hiccups. I think what it shows is just a reminder to the fans that, even though the training camp is still a few weeks away, that these guys are constantly working on their craft. They’re trying to get better. And so, in one regard, you love the fact that Mark was working; it was in a scrimmage. You hate the fact that it results in injury, but I’d rather see the injury in that type of situation versus he was vacationing and something happened.
It doesn’t make it any less impactful, but it just, again, kind of underscores they’re putting in work, and sometimes injuries happen in practice. You don’t get to pick when an injury occurs. So, it will certainly be felt.
I think what it does is puts Man Man (Khaman Maluach) in a position to now…and look, I think two months ago, we were all asking, “Well, gosh, Man Man looked so good in Summer League, right?” And I’ve had a chance to be around him a couple times now in the offseason. I’ve seen the muscle that he’s put on. I’ve seen the work that he’s put in. I heard about some of the work that he’s put in and the improvement. And so, two months ago, everybody was asking, “Well, gosh, how are they going to get him on the floor? How are they going to balance the minutes between he and Mark and Oso?”
Well, life has a funny way of kind of opening a door in this case for Man Man to now potentially, most likely, be the starting center. And you hope that he is ready both physically, but more importantly, mentally, and what you have to look at it as now is the team, the fans, is that we’ve all seen the flashes; we’ve seen the promise with this young man. Well, now you’ve got a chance to really jump on the launching pad and absolutely take off.
And so, I’m always an optimist by nature. I try to look at things, glass half full versus glass half empty. You go from being upset and disappointed for Mark. It’s another setback for him and one that, unfortunately, doesn’t look like it’s gonna be a quick return just based on that kind of injury.
Then you shift your focus to Man Man and say, okay, all right, young fellow, go get it done. Go, go take that next step. Go make that leap. And if you can, it creates a different level of excitement.
I do look for Book to take a step forward. Not that he took a step back last year, but the last few years we have asked Book to do so many different things. And knock on wood, with a healthy Jalen Green and Connie Gillespie back, my hope is that we’ll see Book more in his natural position, which is that off-guard coming off screens, pin-downs, where he could really put opponents in the torture chamber. I want for Book to take a step forward this year, especially this three-point shooting. It was a little bit of a struggle last season.
Boom Room Suite
I see your ‘Boom Room’ sign right behind you. If you were to treat the Boom Room as a penthouse and it could house three inhabitants this year, who do you think they are and who’s knocking on the door?
Kevin Ray: I love that question. I’ve never had anybody phrase a question as it relates to the Boom Room quite like that. So kudos to you. I love that!
I got to put our guy Book in there. I mean, Book’s got the penthouse in the Boom Room. What gets a Boom Room call is typically with a big dunk. Something like that on somebody else’s head, on an opponent’s head. But with Book, we’ve seen him bring the boom, which gets him first-class entrance into the Boom Room, just because of the types of plays that he makes.
I think with the news that we just got, it does open a spot for Man Man. We’ve seen him a couple of times take guys to the Boom Room. So, I’m gonna say Man Man is in there. I don’t think you cannot put Dillon Brooks in the Boom Room, right? Just because of everything that Dillon does, even before it took off, with the stare, that glare down at the opponent’s bench before tip-off.
To me, the guy that is not only knocking on the door, but has a chance, I think, to knock the door down is Rasheer. Here’s a guy — talk about seeing a guy just absolutely blow up in front of you — seeing how big he’s gotten in the offseason, knowing his skill set and freakish athleticism, I think for sure has got a chance to absolutely knock that door down and be a longtime resident in the boom room.
After the interview, Kevin messaged me to add Oso Ighodaro and Miles Bridges to those waiting in the hallway. My personal Boom Room of three would have Jalen Green, Oso, and Miles, with Dillon playing the role of doorman.
The Wrap
Many of us, due to geography or budget, depend on the local and/or NBA League Pass broadcasts to follow the Suns. Every game, viewers spend 200+ hours with Kevin and the crew each year; that’s more than 10 days’ worth of waking hours! It’s energizing to hear the professionalism and energy invested. Let’s hope that one of these seasons (soon) we’re all on that championship flight with KRay as our pilot.
