Craig Sager Is Finally Going To Work His First NBA Finals Game

For the first time in his illustrious career, sideline reporter Craig Sager will be on the floor reporting from the NBA Finals.

The Turner Sports veteran of 34 years will be partnering with ESPN as a sideline reporter for Thursday night's Game 6 between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Though many of us have grown accustomed to seeing Sager and his flamboyant attire all the way through the conference finals, he's never actually reported on the NBA's biggest stage.

Sager expressed his interest in joining the ESPN group to Sports Illustrated in an interview published Wednesday:

Would I be interested? My God, of course! But I didn’t want to step on anyone's toes, and ESPN has a cast of hundreds. I didn’t want to take away from what Doris [Burke] or anyone else on the crew did. But yeah, I wanted to be a part of it.

So why wait until Game 6? According to Sports Illustrated, Sager was scheduled for eight days of chemotherapy following the conclusion of the Western Conference Finals. “That would be the only time I could do a game, and so it had to be Game 6," Sager told Sports Illustrated.

Sager was diagnosed with leukemia in 2014. For a stretch, his cancer had gone into remission, but Sager announced in a interview with HBO's "Real Sports" in March that it had returned. Doctors told Sager that a patient not receiving treatment for his diagnosis generally would have just three to six months to live.

However, Sager went on to tell Sports Illustrated that he did not want to steal the spotlight from the Warriors or the Cavaliers.

"I've been watching the series very closely and, while I do not want to distract in any way from the event itself, I look forward to being in the building for what will be an incredibly exciting Game 6," Sager said. "The NBA community is a very special one and this is a great honor."

With everything set, we now just have to wait and see what wild outfit Sager wears for his first-ever NBA Finals appearance.

If you need more reasons to be a supporter of Craig Sager, here are 8 stories that show how much people love him.