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tommy heinshon of the celtics gets an F. not only does his voice hurts the ears, he's a homer through and through.
So, I've been alternately appalled and pleasantly surprised by the announcers around the league this season, and I think we should devote a thread to them.
Here are a few I can remember to start us off:
Clippers - good natured and fair, but more like an old-school comedy duo (gag man and straight man) than basketball call and colour. Terrible lack of knowledge of the Spurs. Overall, quite fun. (Who are they?) B+
Lakers and Sacto - both utterly biased, derogatory and snide towards the Spurs and ridiculously over the top about the wonder of the home teams. Unlistenable! Made me want to smash their faces in. The worst in Homerism. F
New York - fantastic! Realistic, balanced, fair and funny. Clyde has a smooth, whimsical voice, an excellent knowledge of the game, and an amusing vocabulary. The call guy does his job. A
tommy heinshon of the celtics gets an F. not only does his voice hurts the ears, he's a homer through and through.
Detroit- Good for the most part...enthusiastic and a minumum of homerism. Although George Blaha went a little nutty against the Spurs in Detroit last year when Chauncy Billups dropped his shoulder into Bruce Bowen then kind of stumbled because Bruce didn't move and Blaha yelled "Bowen punched him!!!"
Chicago- The guys on WGN are bad. Too much "We'n and Us'n"
I developed a good deal of respect for he and Mike Breen as they covered the last Spurs game. They know what they are talking about, but what's more amazing is how they can cover the Knicks and keep a straight face. I don't how you can honestly cover a Knicks game without talking about how godawful Isiah is for this team but they managed to do it (although spending nearly two minutes discussing the color of Clyde's suit was pushing it.)
I did notice that whoever was calling the camera shots has a pretty good sense of humor. At two different points I can remember they started discussing how the Knicks were playing so well against the Spurs after poor showings against a number of mediocre teams. So they wondered aloud about what the problem could possibly be, never pointing fingers, but whenever the subject came up the camera switched to a nice long close-up of Isiah Thomas.
Clyde and Breen are great. I do like Joel Myers and Stu Latz of the Lakers though, they are entertaining and not too biased. I agree Heinshon is the worst. The Grizzlies, Nuggets, Jazz, and Heat all have real bad, homer announcers as well. Knicks, Hawks, and Kings have the best crews IMO.
Mike Breen i can stand... the guy with him pissed me off badly... really one sided towards New York the whole ing game... not professional... even was treating the spurs as if they were a sub par team
Clyde Frazier? I hope your not serious, I hate the Knicks with a passion but even I enjoy listening to him.
Clyde Frazier? I hope your not serious, I hate the Knicks with a passion but even I enjoy listening to him.
Celtic's Heinshon *always* stood out as an annoying homer to me. Now that the Celts are loaded, I can't even begin to think what it's like to listen to that guy. I just hope we get the SA broadcast on NBALP when we play them.
did you listen to the guy during the Kniks @ Spurs game???
It's a shame Bill Laimbeer isn't doing any games this year; he managed to be a total homer and very balanced at the same time - admitting it any time the Pistons got away with a no-call, but laughing about it too.
Boston is the worst, IMHO. The Utahrds are pretty hard to take, too. GSW stands out as pretty good.
Miami and Boston have been the worst for me over the years I've had LP.
I can tolerate a lot of homerism, it's not surprising that color guys would favor their own teams. But when it's so over the top that they can't see anything positive about the opponent it gets to me.
I enjoyed the Clippers call, I thought they were fine.
I did watch a little of the Spurs and Knicks and thought that the announcers were pretty fair. I think they might have got to you because the game was close?
For the record the Clipper announcers are Mike Smith and Ralph Wahler
Tony Feuerentino and Eric Ried do the Heat games. They are on Dwade's nuts like no other. Even this year despite them being beat like a pulp those guys make every game out to be "the big game" and proceed to be huge homers. Sun Sports (The network Miami is on) needs to take a page from the Magic in Matt Ghoukas. He is usually one of the best.
I have to say that I really do like the Clippers' guys. I thought it was pretty damn funny how they showed a shot of the color guy acting like he was texting on his cell then immediately going to a clip of Eva reading a text from her phone and laughing. That was funny.
Clyde Frazier and Mike Breen are my favorites among opponents in the league. The GSW crew is good, too.
I think the main thing to remember is that all of these guys are paid to be homers. They are supposed to be homers, but the best ones don't let their homer status keep them from realizing when their team makes mistakes or gets away with bad calls. The absolute worst ones actually advocate injury and are mean spirited towards the opposition, i.e. Portland.
I don't know the names of the announcers for the Jazz but I can't stand them at all. I literally have to watch those games on mute.
BTW. Since Joel Myers use to do Spurs games and now does Lakers games, doesn't it make you wonder how many of these guys are really rooting for the team they cover?
The Lakers announcer (Joel Myers) was the Spurs play by play guy for a couple of years.
He sucks badly. I love the Clippers play by play guy (Ralph Lawler), but it was way better when Walton was his color guy. Boston is by far the worst, with Sacramento being a pretty distant second.
yeah Meyers verbal fellatio of Kobe gets old quick.
Those games were always the best to listen to. Walton gushing with his usual hyperbole -- my all-time favorite was the night that Walton called Corey Maggette "clearly one of the 5 best defensive players in the league," only to later call him "clearly one of the 5 best defensive players ever." The best part was listening to Lawler deal with those things as if Walton ever meant them.
Still, Walton used to crack me up with statements like "I don't know about you, Ralph, but my seatbelt is firmly and securely buckled" as a relatively close game came down to the wire. I guess Lawler has some thing about telling fans to fasten their seatbelts, and Walton would almost always beat him to the punch.
Good call, partner.
I'm getting tired of Sean Elliott.
I always dug Tom Tolbert. He had a bit of a lisp but he usually had some really insightful stuff to say, not the usual commentator BS.
How do other fans feel about Sean? Guy cracks me up...total homer, but with a sense of humor. But, he sees things out there...when someone else is doing the commentary I find myself thinking "what game are you watching?"
When I'm mad at the Spurs...so is he
I like Sean for the most part. It is a treat to have a former Spur as the color man. He really understands the game on so many levels.
Sometimes I think he goes too far when he makes fun of people, or dogs on people's ablities or inabilities, and sometimes he doesn't pay the opponent's enough respect.
I remember the Orlando game last year when Howard beat us at the buzzer with the alley oop, Sean had already crossed Orlando out as a win in the second quarter when they were showing the schedule on the screen.
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