NBA TV has allowed its daily program "The Starters" to remain itself at heart, "without any of the corporate watering down that often comes when big entities get involved," according to Ryan Wolstat of the TORONTO SUN. Leading up to the this weekend's NBA All-Star Game in Toronto, the show's mostly Canadian crew held "live shows from Monday-Wednesday" at a bar in Toronto and will hold one on Friday at Air Canada Centre. Once known as "The Basketball Jones," an "independent group that was later bought by The Score," the program's roster -- which grew to include Trey Kerby, Leigh Ellis, Tas Melas, J.E. Skeets, Jason Doyle and Matt Osten -- made the move to NBA TV and was rebranded as "The Starters," with a daily show and "significant social-media presence." Melas said, "The NBA asking us to speak on behalf of them as part of their company was surreal" (TORONTO SUN, 2/11). NBA Digital GM Scooter Vertino, who has overseen integration of "The Starters" with Turner Sports, said, "It was a leap and it was a risk. It was a risk on their end, and it was a risk on our end, and there had to be some blind trust. More for them, really." In Toronto, Bruce Arthur wrote the hosts of "The Starters" are "still not polished; there's none of the TV straightjacket, from their clothes to the fact that sometimes they talk over each other." They are "pros, but they don’t use a teleprompter." But that is the "point, because they become your buddies." There is an "earnestness to them; the whole point is that it should be fun" (TORONTO STAR, 2/10).
