Portland Trail Blazers broadcaster Lamar Hurd hopped on the We Like the Blazers podcast Friday with me and Brandon Mullen to discuss a number of topics: life on the road, his approach to broadcasting, how this Blazers season has been different from a broadcasting perspective, the Grinch, and more!
Beyond basketball, the 33-minute conversation includes thoughtful reflection from Hurd about his journey as a broadcaster as he nears the end of his ninth season with the Blazers.
On that subject, Hurd discussed his partnership with Blazers broadcaster Kevin Calabro. Hurd said the beginning of the duo’s Blazers tenure was challenging since they were following up the long-tenured Blazers broadcasting crew of Mike Barrett and Mike Rice; it took some time to gain a familiarity with the Blazers fan base and vice versa, especially since fans were (understandably) attached to Mike & Mike.
So what Kevin and I really settled into at a certain point was we just gotta do us and this thing is gonna flow the way it needs to flow... It’s like a bit of a mourning when people lose their team announcers and there’s a change and you know how it goes. I understood that, and so we just knew: lets just represent this team, lets be ourselves, and I think we kind of settled into that over a season or two as time went on — as we also learned the fanbase, as we learned the players, as we learned Coach Terry Stotts and how he likes to do things as he was the coach at the time. So the more we got to just learn and kind of just settle into the environment, I think we’ve been good to go since then.
Working in such a public-facing role, Hurd also discussed the importance of maintaining humility and not getting caught up with people-pleasing. Rather, he tries to do the best job he can do, be honest in his own self-assessment and then live with the results.
Also, just try not to get into a mode of people-pleasing where it’s ok to want people to enjoy what you’re doing, but man, everybody is gonna have their own opinions and different things, so for me I just try to do my job, I go home, job is over, I go back to the job the next day. That’s kinda the process, not carrying things with me whether it’s good or bad. If I have some good calls or something goes viral or whatever, I’m not going to spend 24 hours with everybody like, ‘hey, look look look what happened, look what I did.’
Hurd said he approaches the job and his platform as a Blazers broadcaster by keeping an overarching goal at the center of it all: uplifting the community.
[The job was about], okay, now how can we turn this into something where everybody’s involved, where we’re watching Trail Blazers games together; we’re having fun together; we’re learning about stuff in basketball, outside of basketball together; we’re affecting each others’ lives together. That’s what it’s all about. So for me, it’s been really simple to keep a clear head and clear mission to what I do.
We really appreciated Lamar for taking the time to join us. We also hope you take the time to listen to the episode because the short snippets above don’t do justice to the depth of his answers. The reflections he gave about his broadcasting approach and development can double as advice for anybody in any career field, whether that’s in basketball or not. I know I took a lot from it.
Also: You may notice once Lamar leaves, the podcast keeps going. That’s because this is a special 2-for-1 edition! After the interview with Lamar Hurd, stick around for a conversation about the Blazers’ recent stretch, Scoot Henderson’s development this season, the return of Matisse Thybulle and other topics.