A Look Back At Vitale Calling The NBA

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

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Everybody seems to love this Dickie V to the NBA idea, especially ESPN, so let's take a little look back at a more subdued Dickie V calling a Celtics-Bucks playoff game in 1984....



I still contend that this is a bad idea, but if it gets people to watch the NBA, you can't really fault ESPN for the stunt. I'm personally more interested in the NBA team of Breen, Jackson and JVG calling the NCAA game tonight, but I'll be checking out both and commenting on them tomorrow.

16 Comments:

It's Tirico, not Breen. Unless Breen turned into a balding black guy.

It'll be nice to hear Tirico on college basketball again. He called one of my favorite games; the Pitt/UConn double OT Big East title game from '03. If you remember at all, Brandin Knight nearly hit from half court on one leg at the end of the first OT, and then Taliek Brown hit a 30 footer to put UConn up for good in the second OT with half a minute left. My team lost, but I still remember Tirico's screams.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 5:14:00 PM  

Mike Tirico is the PBP man tonight at Duke.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 5:15:00 PM  

'02, not '03. my bad.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 5:26:00 PM  

That's right, I forgot that he was the Big Monday pbp guy a few years ago with Raftery (and Bilus?).

walnuts said...
Jan 7, 2009, 6:43:00 PM  

They just put up a graphic that showed Seth Curry was 0-1. Now that would be something if they were both on Davidson.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 7:22:00 PM  

"You don't have any Presbyterians in the NBA." -- Jeff Van Gundy, referring to the lightweight college team, not the Christian denomination. LOL. I'm sure there's at least a couple...

Jay said...
Jan 7, 2009, 7:33:00 PM  

I miss Mike Tirco doing college games. He used to do college football and college basketball. I wish they'll bring him back once a while to do a game or two for both sports outside tonight. However, I do like him on Monday Night Football, but Kornheiser (spelling) needs to go. He is just painfully annoying and never shuts up. Get rid of him, and MNF ratings will continue to go up.

pattywagon said...
Jan 7, 2009, 7:34:00 PM  

SHUT UP HANNAH STORM

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 8:31:00 PM  

ESPN certainly promoted the hell out of this announcer-trade stunt. The promos started early, and rose to a thundering crescendo by this evening. Excessive, even by ESPN standards -- and that's saying something.

I guess you gotta do whatever you can, to boost the ratings for a pair of early-January games. Hey, if this works out, will they swap Jon Miller & Joe Morgan with the MNF crew? Or get the WSOP team involved in this somehow? (That'd be entertaining: a pro or college PBP with Norman Chad talking about gambling the whole time.)

jvwalt said...
Jan 7, 2009, 8:54:00 PM  

It appears that no one anywhere, much less on ESPN, remembers that Vitale worked the NBA Finals on radio at least one year in the late 80's. He worked the Lakers vs. Pistons series in 1988. They have said for three days that he last worked an NBA game in the playoffs in 1984.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 9:10:00 PM  

As a diehard NBA fan, I like this announcers swap thing. Plus, let's not forget Dick Vitale used to coach in the NBA. He coached the Detroit Pistons. And he already announced some pro games in the past, so it's not the first time he's doing the NBA game.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 9:32:00 PM  

Anon 9:32 I think that is pretty fucking clear if you have either read this blog entery of the 11 comments or watched ESPN in the last month.

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 9:37:00 PM  

"... read this blog entry or..."

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 9:39:00 PM  

vitale should be banned from doing nba games, he was really annoying!!

Anonymous said...
Jan 7, 2009, 10:03:00 PM  

he actually made the game fun to watch...for a little while

questionmark said...
Jan 8, 2009, 12:05:00 AM  

Wait! Nancy Leiberman did an NBA game? WTF? I would have tuned in for that!!! Why didn't ESPN promote that more? Damn.

Jan 8, 2009, 12:47:00 AM  

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