NBC Host Maria Taylor Engages in Reddit AMA Session

Top Stories NBC host Maria Taylor participates in Reddit AMA Maria Taylor answers questions from the NBA Reddit community about her role at NBC, favorite interviews and more.

Maria Taylor hosts the “NBA Showtime” and “Basketball Night in America” studio shows, as part of NBC’s NBA coverage. She sat down to discuss her role at NBC, her journey as a sportscaster, favorite interviews and more in this Reddit AMA. Check out what she had to say.
Question: With NBC getting a substantial increase of sports coverage between the new NBA deal, the upcoming MLB deal, and having the 1-2 punch of doing the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics (on top of SNF as always), how have you been managing the workload? Answer: The workload is certainly the biggest I’ve ever had in my career. When I think back to Sunday Night Basketball starting on February 1st, going straight to the Super Bowl, to Milan for the Winter Olympics, and coming straight back and hopping right back into basketball, the travel schedule has been insane, but as far as staying up to date on all the storylines or the information, we have a research team that does all that. We have news editors and writers that help us throughout every single show, and so before any NBA Showtime or any of our Basketball Night in America shows, I sit down with our researcher, whose name is Justin, and we go over every single game, every storyline that could come up in our show. We have a conversation. Half the time, we’re just sitting on the baseline before the players even start warming up. And that’s how I manage to make sure I’m staying on top of everything. In addition to that I’m reading articles and listening to podcasts on every single sport that you guys can imagine. So when we’re doing the Winter Olympics, I’m adding in some skiing, or adding in some hockey, so I’m just staying on top of all the sports that I might see. That’s kind of how I manage it, and then the other part is literally taking it day by day. What is the sport? What is the conversation? What are we talking about right now? And then I’ll focus on the next event the next day.
Question: Who’s been your favorite person to interview throughout your post WNBA career? Answer: I love the fact that anyone believes that I had a WNBA career because I did play basketball in college, but never made it to the pros. I went pro in broadcasting. That was the goal. But I would say that the favorite person that I’ve ever interviewed, I have a couple of them, but one of my favorite interviews ever was interviewing Shaq on the sidelines of an LSU football game. It was crazy because I remember at that game, I think they were playing Texas A&M, and there was all this conversation about maybe Les Miles losing his job. I just went up to Shaq and was like, hey, do you want to do an interview? And I asked him about the coach, and he was talking about how LSU needs to let him know one way or the other. And so it ended up being a storyline later. And at the end of the interview, I remember Shaq being like, “You did a good job”, on-air. I said thanks, I appreciate it, but it was also my first time meeting him. So there was definitely some intimidation there. But there are moments like that where you don’t know what to expect when you’re at a game. Someone might be in the crowd, and you’re just literally walking up to them, tapping them on the shoulder and being like do you want to be on national television or not? That’s one of my fun, fond memories.
Question: Who is the most intimidating athlete you ever interviewed and what made it that way? Answer: I was at the women’s basketball regional in Oklahoma City when Kevin Durant was still playing there. Brittney Griner was playing in her last game at Baylor and they were playing Louisville. KD just came to the game, just hanging out. He came to pretty much every single game at that regional because he’s just a hoop head. If there’s basketball being played in a five-mile radius from him, he’s going. My producer was asking me if I could get KD to do an interview. And I’m scared. I don’t know. Does he like doing interviews? I don’t think he does. But I went up to him and asked, and what I respected about KD was that he understood the assignment. The fact that he was there meant something, and this was before the push for women’s sports, where we had all the support pouring in, and financial support and backing, and people were talking about sports. And he did the interview, and said why he was there, and why he loved the game of women’s basketball. I was so thankful for that moment, but I would say that was the most intimidating, because he was literally sitting by himself in a corner, and you could just tell he didn’t want to be bothered, he’s just trying to watch the game. But I knew it was my job as a reporter to go have this conversation with them, and to his credit, he definitely did it.
Question: What is your ritual before going on air for a massive game? Answer: Right before I go on air, I am the Queen of a deep breathing exercise. I want to slow my heart rate down as low as I can get it, so I’m all about the in for four, hold for four, out for six. I’m doing deep breaths. If it’s a really big game, I would say, like the NBA Finals, I probably need to do that. Anytime I’m working at a Super Bowl, or a gold medal match, or something like that, those moments, I can get tense and tight, so I do the deep breathing. But other than that, normally before a show, you can find us in the studio listening to music, going over and getting the warm-up shots, or the guys walking through the tunnel, so I’m seeing the guys before we actually air it, and I’m kind of scripting out what I want to say when we come up on air live. So that’s like a pregame ritual or something. And then I’m usually eating Sour Patch Kids before. My pregame meal is sugar, and generally speaking, a latte or something, so I crash pretty hard after a show, but I’m hyped throughout the whole thing.
Question: If you could mic up one player every game, who would it be and why? Answer: 100% Ant-Man. Put a mic on Anthony Edwards anywhere, like, just put him in the car. I would love to hear what he’s saying. He’s so fun to listen to in postgame interviews. He’s raw, he’s entertaining, he just says the honest truth and whatever comes to his head, so I would actually like to hear what he’s actively thinking and saying on the court during a game. That is my favorite person or player anywhere to wear a mic throughout a game. I can say that I think it would be hilarious.
Question: What is something you remember about the 2018 draft? Something behind the scenes or never been told.. or just anything cool. Answer: The 2018 draft was my first time ever working an NBA draft, so on a personal level, it means a lot to me because I had always wanted to work a draft, because I feel like that is the biggest moment and the best moment in a lot of ways in a lot of players’ careers. Everything that they’ve ever worked for up until that moment is to make it from hearing their name called to shaking the commissioner’s hand. And then I get to be the next person that has a conversation with them right after they’ve achieved this dream. It felt really good to reach that point in my career where I could be at the NBA draft. Obviously, the biggest storyline that we walked away with was the Trae Young and Luka Dončić trade, so everyone was talking about that. Some of the interviews I really remember were with Jaren Jackson Jr., because I’d covered him a ton in college. It was also my first year doing Men’s College Basketball sidelines, so it was great to have these close relationships with all the guys coming in. Wendell Carter, I remember loving his interview, and he and his mom had matching outfits, and it was the cutest thing ever. I’m from Atlanta, they’re from Atlanta, I knew what high school he went to, that was cool. And I remember interviewing Colin Sexton, and at the time, it was, like. Is LeBron gonna be included? Like, what’s gonna happen? And I was like, “What do you want to say to LeBron?” And he said something like, “Let’s go, Bron”, or whatever, like, “Stay with me, it’s gonna be a fun ride.” And so I remember small moments like that, but ultimately walk away feeling like it was a pinnacle moment for me in my career.
Question: Who has the best banter from both the players side and commentators? Answer: On the commentator side, hands down, the cousins: Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter. Sometimes the entire show gets derailed because the cousins are just having some kind of inside family drama. It’s just happening on live television. But the funny thing is, it happens off-air, too, all the time. They’re just going back and forth at each other, and it happens in a way that is just so genuine and only they can do it because they’ve known each other for so long. And now that they have a podcast together, I think everyone gets to see it unvarnished. You get to see the raw, uncut version of the cousins, which is really cool. On the court, I enjoy watching Steph and Draymond, and players who have been together for a long time, just spending time together. And sometimes when they’re on the sidelines, even if they’re not playing in the game, just watching them laughing and telling jokes sitting on the bench is hilarious to me. I interviewed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren before the season started, and their little banter is hilarious, too. Sometimes it’s like, are y’all speaking in code? What’s going on? Because they’ve been around each other so much that they have these inside jokes, and it’s fun to watch them banter and go back and forth with each other.
Question: What’s your favorite sports broadcaster call ever? Answer: “The Shot” by Michael Jordan. Bob Costas is one of the legends of broadcasting. I’m still dumbfounded every time he comes on and intros NBA Showtime and even says my name on air, because I watched him in the Olympics, watched him cover the NBA, watched him cover the Bulls and their run. So, that because it reminds me of excellence at the highest level in the sport, like in the game of basketball and in broadcasting, and they’re happening at the same time.
Question: How did you get hired on NBC? Answer: I was literally working in the NBA, maybe it was the Western Conference Finals, but I was in Phoenix, and I remember getting a call from NBC and they were like, “Hey, is there an interest here? Could we see us working together in the future?” I had conversations with NBC before in my younger days, and I had always looked up to the fact that they put on the very best broadcast. They had the top show of whatever it was, so they had the Olympics, or they had Sunday Night Basketball, and they always did it at a very elite level and left no stone unturned. And so, we’re having this conversation, and I remember getting off, and I was thinking that there’s no way I’m going to NBC. And they actually called and had a conversation with my parents, and my parents were saying that they really liked them. And I was like, okay, let me do one more call. And on the second call, I was thinking I actually really like them too. So, shout out to my parents for getting me over to NBC. My mom and dad told me I should go.
Question: From being at the Olympics to hosting the Super Bowl pregame show and the return of Sunday Night Basketball, what’s been your biggest personal highlight over the last year? Answer: My personal highlight is just going from the Sunday Night Basketball game to the Super Bowl. I flew back to New York, picked up my two-year-old son, put him on a plane with me to Italy, and that day I landed, I was on air for the Olympics. So finding a way to be a mom, be present with my son, and also be at, what I feel like is, the top of my career. There’s nothing that I’m doing that I don’t want to do, and there’s nothing that I would like to do that I don’t have, and I have all of those things, and being afforded the opportunity to take my baby with me is amazing. I took him to Boston, he went to TD Garden with me last Sunday, and so personally, that is the thing that I couldn’t trade for the whole entire world, that I have those opportunities to show him the world and to show him basketball at an elite level, football, hockey, the Olympics, all of those things, all wrapped up in one. That was definitely a special moment, just getting off the plane in Milan, being with him, and going through those major events all within the span of February.
Question: Some current and former NBA players have noted the nostalgia and authenticity of having NBA back on NBC, specifically from the ‘90s. I’m wondering if you had any of those nostalgic, or similar feelings, as well? Especially since you are the lead studio host. Answer: Oh, 100%. We’ve had a throwback, and I literally sat back on my couch and watched one of our Throwback Tuesdays. We had Hannah Storm, Isaiah Thomas, Bob Costas, and seeing them basically rewinding the tape, they would stop the broadcast and go back to the old NBA on NBC days and run it back. And I remember, I was young, but I remember some of those shows, sitting back and just seeing them, and so it’s so cool to see how we’ve been working to marry history, but being modern and pushing the game and our shows forward, and it’s been fun to be on the backside of that. And then, having Bob Costas come around for our basketball night in America’s, especially on the big games, it gives it a certain type of gravitas that you can’t have unless you have that incredible history, so I get all the feels, the goosebumps about it. I lived in Chicago for 10 years. We moved to Atlanta right before I was in middle school, around 1998. We were in Chicago when all the MJ mania, fandom, and championships were going down. We went to games at the United Center, so I remember them vividly as a small child, and it shaped my world in a lot of ways, and so to be working on it now is just beating every dream I could have ever imagined for myself.
Question: Who should win Rookie of the Year? Answer: Kon Knueppel and I don’t know that it’s really up for debate at this point. I was just watching the Hornets play the Knicks, and he hit 6 threes, and every time he steps up to shoot, in my mind, it’s going in. He’s the youngest player to hit 250 3-pointers, and he leads the league in made 3-pointers. At this point, he’s one of the best shooters in the league. We’re not even talking about rookies, we’re just talking about in the league, currently just one of the best shooters. I think he wins it. There’s nothing bad to say about Cooper Flag. It