I really have no idea why they decided to do this, but ABC has added recently fired Rockets' Coach Jeff Van Gundy to the booth. He will join a team of Mike Breen and Mark Jackson that has done a stellar job this offseason, and ultimately screw up any chemistry the two had built together.

Here's the thing. Jeff Van Gundy is good....he did a great job with TNT in the past, and is an extremely intelligent guy. But the problem boils down to one simple thing. Three man booths rarely work in any sport, and are just down right dreadful in Basketball. There isn't enough time for two people other than the color guy to get their point across. They ultimately end up stepping on each other's toes the entire night, and the PbPer is left trying to pick up the pieces. The only sport this really works in is Football because of the time between plays.

I'm convinced that Mike Breen was dragged down during last year's playoffs by Hubie Brown. He has found a great partner in Mark Jackson, and sans Albert-Kerr they are the best grouping during these playoffs. Remember that this team has only been together for about five months (Christmas Day), which equates to 15 games (Jon Barry has worked some in Jackson's absence).
It just makes zero sense to add Van Gundy now, and possibly keep him on through the Finals.

I missed the Jazz-Spurs game yesterday when the three-man booth made it's debut. If you have anything to add, or want to debate my theory....please add it in the comments.

ESPN Basketball Booth News (Awful Announcing- Dec 2006)

Mike Breen seems to be in the news a lot the past couple of days. From being in the booth for the Infamous, but rather weak, MSG fight....to finding out today that he has a new partner in the booth.

That's right Skeletor Hubie Brown is out as partner, and one Mark Jackson is in.

USA TODAY: Starting Christmas Day, Jackson will succeed Hubie Brown as partner of play-by-play announcer Mike Breen for NBA Sunday on ABC's 19 game telecasts. He'll also star on ABC's pregame show with returning host Dan Patrick and analyst Michael Wilbon.

ESPN/ABC's revamped lineup will try to challenge TNT's more popular NBA team of studio analysts Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith and game duos Marv Albert and Steve Kerr and Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins.

While I've had issues with Mike Breen in the past. I think I've come to the conclusion that his errors were mainly due to his babysitting of the Crypt Keeper Brown. Breen handled the MSG fight brilliantly the other night. And being a grizzled "bench clearing brawl" vet (he called the Ron Artest- Auburn Hill Incident) he really should think about calling boxing.

NEW YORK POST: "Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail," he said. "Nate Robinson throwing a punch. Smith coming right back at him. This has turned ugly."

Breen continued to describe the action, correctly waiting until after Anthony's late haymaker to the side of Collins' head before declaring: "This is turning into some sort of disaster right now if they don't hold onto some of these players." MSG showed all the appropriate shots from all the right angles. It also had a microphone that picked up the sound of Anthony's hand cracking Collins head.

•Knicks-Nuggets fight: "Guys don't understand what being tough is. It's not starting an all-out brawl or jumping into the stands. To me, that's fake hustle. That's my own language for false bravado. When we played, you expected a hard foul. It was like, 'Let's shoot our foul shots, take the ball, and we'll get you back.' "

• Approach to broadcasting: "A picture is worth a million words but one word is worth a million pictures. You don't have to overtalk. You don't have to go to the same stale stuff."

• Broadcasting mentors: Brown, Kerr, Wilbon, Patrick plus Ian Eagle and Tim Capstraw (Jackson's partners on New Jersey Nets games) and Albert, to whom he grew up listening in New York. "As a kid I dreamed about being an announcer. I would call the game with Marv. I told him, 'This is not the first time I've worked with you. This is the first time you're aware of it."

When discussing Marcus Williams and his problems with the law (he stole laptops while at UConn) Mark Jackson threw out this gem (and I'm paraphrasing here):

"Well you've gotta have computers....You're in college."- Greg Anthony
"Well he didn't have to steal them."- Dan Patrick
"He was on scholarship, so they should have provided him with computers."- GA
"Come on Greg.....we didn't all go to UNLV."- DP