At last night’s draft, Sager returned to his usual form, sporting a purple coat and tie to host the Virtual Green Room for NBA.com. When we chatted later in the evening, I asked what inspired him to dress the way he does.

It began toward the end of Sager’s high school days in Batavia, Ill., which he described as “very dull, very boring, bunch of cornfields, nothing, no excitement.”

“They said, ‘For your high school picture, you have to wear a blazer,; it has to be black or blue,’” Sager said. “I was a big fan of the Monkees, and [Davy] Jones used to wear this Nehru jacket, which was bright blue with a white collar. I said, ‘That’s what I want to wear for my picture.’”

Sager wore a Nehru jacket of his own, causing a stir big enough to incite some local chatter about possibly barring him from the yearbook, and the rest is history. Since his days in Batavia, Sager has become a globally recognized part of the basketball broadcast scene.