NBA Draft
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 9:03 amI'm glad Bryan Hopkins didn't go through with the idea of declaring for the Draft -- good player, we'd miss him, he still has room to improve, and all that. But the reason I'm glad he wasn't a part of the Draft this year is because it will give ESPN another year to get some new announcers. Did you see that last night? Some of them (Jay Bilas) are outstanding, but some of them are nothing short of ridiculous.
First you had Jim Gray, the premier vulture in all of sportscasting (who can forget his sensitive inquisition of Pete Rose on the night Rose was allowed back on a field so fans could cheer for him?) Gray has a unique ability to lob meaningless softball questions at an interview subject and somehow still come off as an anything-for-a-story slime. Makes my skin crawl.
Then you have Mark Jones, the most un-hip guy out there. He used to host the "NBA Today" show on ESPN, and is so bad that last night he was relegated to interviewing players' family members at the tables. ("You must be really proud of your son." Really? You think? No kidding!) That guy doesn't have enough interview skills to ask for directions.
Then there's the omnipresent Stuart Scott. Please kill me if he hosts another Draft. Between the 12-grip handshakes with the players and the shameless pimping for North Carolina (to Luol Deng: "I'm still mad at you for what you did to the Tar Heels" - nothing like a little objectivity, and way to steal the attention away from the segment that was supposed to be about Deng, not about Scott's pent-up infatuation with UNC), I really wanted to get sick. And just to make sure I did, in his analysis, Scott kept referring to players (mostly of guys he undoubtedly has never seen) as "kid," "dude," "playa" or "my man."
If Hopkins had gone pro, and been lucky enough to get drafted, I think I'd have gotten sick watching those guys working their act with an SMU player. All they were missing was Brent Musberger.
Who would have thought there would actually be a day when people would watch the NBA Draft and actually begin to miss Hubie Brown and Bill Walton behind the desk?
First you had Jim Gray, the premier vulture in all of sportscasting (who can forget his sensitive inquisition of Pete Rose on the night Rose was allowed back on a field so fans could cheer for him?) Gray has a unique ability to lob meaningless softball questions at an interview subject and somehow still come off as an anything-for-a-story slime. Makes my skin crawl.
Then you have Mark Jones, the most un-hip guy out there. He used to host the "NBA Today" show on ESPN, and is so bad that last night he was relegated to interviewing players' family members at the tables. ("You must be really proud of your son." Really? You think? No kidding!) That guy doesn't have enough interview skills to ask for directions.
Then there's the omnipresent Stuart Scott. Please kill me if he hosts another Draft. Between the 12-grip handshakes with the players and the shameless pimping for North Carolina (to Luol Deng: "I'm still mad at you for what you did to the Tar Heels" - nothing like a little objectivity, and way to steal the attention away from the segment that was supposed to be about Deng, not about Scott's pent-up infatuation with UNC), I really wanted to get sick. And just to make sure I did, in his analysis, Scott kept referring to players (mostly of guys he undoubtedly has never seen) as "kid," "dude," "playa" or "my man."
If Hopkins had gone pro, and been lucky enough to get drafted, I think I'd have gotten sick watching those guys working their act with an SMU player. All they were missing was Brent Musberger.
Who would have thought there would actually be a day when people would watch the NBA Draft and actually begin to miss Hubie Brown and Bill Walton behind the desk?