Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn ImagesNBC Sports Philadelphia is budgeting to add a courtside voice to its Sixers broadcasts ahead of LeBron Jamess arrival this season, network vice president of content Alexandra Matcham told the Philadelphia Inquirer.I think you need a voice on the court where Alaa [Abdelnaby] and Kate [Scott] cant be to give us insight, do pre- and postgame interviews, analysis, all of that, Matcham said. Its a very hard job to do.For years, NBC Sports Philadelphia and its predecessor, Comcast SportsNet, used reporters like Serena Winters and Taryn Hatcher to fill that kind of role for the Sixers. That stopped in 2020, when the network began eliminating in-arena and in-game reporting jobs across its properties as basketball and hockey seasons wrapped that year, according to Crossing Broads Kevin Kinkead. Hatcher stayed on covering the Phillies for five more seasons after that before her contract lapsed at the end of 2025 and NBC Sports Philadelphia cut the position rather than renew it. Kinkead later reported that the network and Hatcher had discussed a freelance arrangement that would have let her take on other work at the same time, but the talks ended without an agreement over what Kinkeads sources described as a standard contract disagreement, not any real conflict between the two sides.That left NBC Sports Philadelphia without anyone in that role for the entirety of the Sixers 2025-26 season, and the roster now taking shape gives the network far less room to go another year without one.If you get a generational talent on your team, it could easily become a situation where the people that work for us are burnt out by December, and you dont want that, Matcham said. You need extra help.The shape of the new role hasnt been decided, and Matcham said shes been deliberate about not defaulting to the title NBC Sports Philadelphia has used for that kind of position in the past. The network cut its last remaining in-arena reporting jobs across its properties, including the Sixers, starting in 2020, and whatever gets added back now wont simply be a return to that old model.As Im talking to my colleagues, Im not even calling it a reporter role because I feel like its going to give them a stereotype I dont necessarily mean, Matcham said.Among the options Matcham described is bypassing a generalist Sixers reporter altogether in favor of someone hired specifically for Jamess orbit, someone with an existing relationship built from prior coverage of him rather than of the team broadly.The Scott-Abdelnaby broadcast finished 29th out of 30 teams in AAs 2025-26 local NBA announcer rankings, the third straight season in that spot. The most common grade fans gave them was a C, and roughly six in ten voters gave them a passing grade at all. Fans praised Scotts professionalism and criticized Abdelnaby as too much of a homer. Several comments also cited the absence of Hatcher as a drag on the broadcast.Hatcher spent eight years at NBC Sports Philadelphia covering all four major Philadelphia teams, most recently working Phillies home games alongside Tom McCarthy and John Kruk, but since her departure has been selective about new roles while managing a health situation. Matcham defended the decision at the time, telling the Philadelphia Business Journal the network wanted to add to our storytelling in new ways and that the position was being eliminated.Whatever title the network settles on, it will be trying to recreate, under different terms, the exact kind of presence it decided a year ago it could do without.The post NBC Sports Philadelphia weighing adding courtside voice for Sixers after LeBron James arrival appeared first on Awful Announcing.