Albuquerque's Lauren Green looks back on Year 1 as an NBA sideline reporter

Lauren Green was about 13 when she got this crazy idea.

Watching Golden State Warriors basketball regularly with one of her older brothers, Green was not only watching great players and exciting games, but she saw something else.

Built around these games she was watching was a whole other world. A production — announcers, producers, sideline reporters — filling the gaps between Steph Curry and Klay Thompson 3-pointers and Draymond Green technical fouls was storytelling, information, context.

“I didn’t know sideline reporters were a job that you could really like have as a career, or just be in sports media in general,” said Green, the 26-year-old Albuquerque native who just completed her first season working for the NBA’s Utah Jazz as a sideline reporter and studio host.

“That was my first kind of — the seeds were planted. Like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”

Then after graduating from Volcano Vista High School in 2017 and going to the University of Nevada on a track scholarship, she dove head first into this new world — volunteering to do weekly sports updates in the athletic department when she wasn’t competing and earning her degree in journalism.

From there, it was Arizona State’s highly-regarded Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication for a graduate degree and her first dose of regular on-air experience — seeking more and more hand-on opportunities to learn and reaching out to a number of potential mentors seeking advice and guidance.

After a brief stop back home in Albuquerque at KOB-TV, working general assignment reporting, sports and even serving as the weekend morning anchor, Green got her first big break in major professional sports about nine months ago.

Now, after completing her first season as the sideline reporter and host of the Utah Jazz, Green sat down for an in-depth conversation with the Talking Grammer podcast (Episode 105, with video available now on the Journal’s YouTube page or the audio version wherever you download podcasts).

Here are some excerpts from the conversation with Albuquerque’s own, Lauren Green:

• • •

On her first year in the NBA:

“Year one’s like, all about building relationships, right? So you’re just kind of learning everybody. You’re learning the players, you’re learning the coaching staff. You’re learning how the day-to-day work goes — showing up to any practices you are allowed to go to, every shoot-around, and just constantly being around.

“I feel like this year, which this is just my nature in general, but I was just very observant. Like, when I first get to a new place, I just kind of try to observe where I’m at. And, yeah, I’m doing my job, and learning as I go, but just trying to figure out how the ecosystem works.

“I’m very lucky. The Jazz are an amazing organization. I don’t just say that because I work there, either. I tell people this all the time. I work with some really great people, from top to (bottom), just everywhere.

“And it was scary at first, because you’re like, okay, now I’m actually here. I’m in the NBA. And you’re reporting (before a game) and LeBron James is behind you (while I’m) doing stand-ups. You’re like, this is kind of crazy.”

• • •

On still having a love for track & field:

“Track and field still — it’s still amazing to me. I hope to cover more in the future. I know the Olympics are in the U.S. in a couple years — in L.A. — so that’s definitely a goal (to cover, not compete).”

• • •

On working with well-known sports journalist Holly Rowe with the Jazz:

“Working with Holly’s amazing. She’s helped me so much. And I take so many notes from different things she does, just because, you know, she’s been in this business for a while. ... Seeing Holly growing up in life, and then, yeah, my name’s next to hers now is pretty, pretty crazy.”

• • •

On the amount of work having a job in the NBA is:

“What’s that phrase? If you’re doing what you love every day, it doesn’t really feel like work. But this workload was something different. Like, I was working every single day. I mean, we’re traveling, and you’re landing in a new city at 2 in the morning and then getting to your hotel around 2:30, 2:45, waking up the next day and if we’re on a back to back (two games in different cities in back-to-back days) you’re trying to wake up and prep for the next game.

“But it is the most rewarding — every day I do feel lucky. I’m like, ‘This is amazing.’”