National Basketball Association

Craig Sager graces cover of SI, offers insight into cancer fight in interview

Published Apr. 26, 2016 8:07 p.m. ET

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Andre Vergara

When Craig Sager started his career in sports reporting in 1972, he almost certainly never dreamed he'd end up on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

And yet here he is, almost 45 years later, gracing the cover just like legends he's covered throughout his career.

Sager, 64, discusses his two-year cancer battle in the latest issue of SI, including the response from his NBA family and what working throughout his treatment has meant to him.

There's no quit in Sager, who covered a Cavs-Pistons game last week wearing a tribute to Prince. Just weeks earlier he threw the sports world into a funk when he told HBO that a person with his condition would live three to six months without treatment. However, he's receiving the best care available on an almost daily basis, and fighting like crazy.

“A patient who battles this past a year is amazing,” his doctor, Naveen Pemmaraju, told SI. “What he’s done is almost miraculous.”

Sager is so much more than flashy suits. He has some incredible stories — interviewing Hank Aaron on the field following his 715th home run, talking a gun-toting Dennis Rodman out of suicide at a strip club — but these days his resilience is the story, touching fans around the world and the superstars he covers.

Visited in the hospital by Adam Silver, Sager told the NBA commissioner he must have had bigger business to attend to.

“No, I don’t,” Silver said. “You’re as important to the NBA as players or coaches or owners.”

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