I don't want to spoil the party, but the Warriors are off to another shaky start. I mean, no one expected them to begin a launch party direct to the NBA championship, but two games into the season, the relative unease and doom and gloom has set in en mass.
The captain of the ship is coach Don Nelson. "Nellie" is a cool guy. Funny, wise-crackin', sort of borderline intimidating 'cuase the damn guy is 25 victories away from becoming the all-time winning est coach in NBA history.
But back to reality. Nellie is on the clock. He's nearing 70 and beginning to look a bit more jaded. Like sort of, "what the hell am I doing here?-look" He seems disinterested, which considering he's being paid just over $6 million for the next two years seems sort of out of place. That's a lot of coin for disinterest.
It would be nice to know, don't you think? Nellie does a weekly show on KNBR with the "Razor and Mr. T"; (Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert,) part of the KNBR entertainment extravaganza. And boy, what a show.
Nellie fires off a lot of one-liners. He's damn funny. Seriously, he is. It's just that I wish Ralph and Tom would occasionally interrupt the show every now and then and ask Nellie about the Dubs; like, uh, "coach, you look a bit disjointed and bored out there on the floor--what's got you down?" Or even something relatively easy like, "you know; you're getting a lot of flack for being quick with the younger players; is there a reason why that seems to be the consensus?" Questions like that, know what I mean? Is Stephen Jackson driving you crazy? Do you really love him? Really now.
Instead, we get a lot of giggling. Some great one-liners by Nelson too. He's damn funny and charming. In fact, Nellie puts Phil Jackson to shame on the "it" meter. Jackson is zen-boring, but Jackson has 10 titles and 10 rings. That's a lot of boring success. Nelson has about a gazillion regular-season victories and zero championships, but is one helluva guy to have a drink with and talk about basketball.
My anti-KNBR fetish aside, it would be cool every now and then for the afternoon guys to try to delve just an inch into the mind of Nellie. The "you dumb bastards" sound drops by the old coach makes for interesting radio, but if I'm a Warriors fan, I'd like for a little more 'Meet the Press' treatment toward the coach versus 'Larry King Live'.
Someone pointed out to me that that's not in the equation because Barbieri is too 'close to Nellie. That a few summers ago, Ralph spent a week in Maui hanging out with coach Nelson and that he ain't gonna mess with him, but I have faith and an Ameci's pizza that that isn't the case.
Surely, the boys are better than that. They can still whoop it up with Nellster, but I know they have it in them to lob a few curve balls at Nellie just to break up the fun house; seriously I do. Why? Because I do, you dumb bastard!
**ESPN let load big time Sunday morning on Raiders coach Tom Cable with a boatload of interviews of Cable's ex-girlfriend and first wife alleging Cable punched one and slapped another. On "Outside the Lines", Bob Ley let loose with a plethora of anti-Cable material, including a report by Chris Mortensen that NFL commish Roger Goodell would rule on the Cable matter with Napa DA officials, (he was cleared by DA Gary Lieberstein, but Goddell could still fine him on league conduct policy) and also investigate the domestic abuse charges. Stay tuned. PS: The anti-Cable media contingent: Tim Kawakami of the SJ Merc; Mike Silver of Yahoo Sports and ESPN's Mortensen/Chris Berman were all out front and center Sunday.
Would have been nice if the haters had questioned the TIMING of these charges leveled at Cable, would it not? I don't condone alleged domestic abuse; if Cable really did punch his ex-wife in the face, he's scum and should be held accountable, but where the hell were these women BEFORE the Randy Hanson affair? Curious timing and the piling on by so-called sports "journalists" and ESPN in particular, is ludicrous, but what else is new?
UPDATE: Mike Florio of ProfootballTalk had a more objective analysis.
**INSTANT REPLAY for MLB: Easy choice. Just install it. To hell with the "human element" and "disrupting the 'flow of the game, or did you see the A-Rod call in Saturday night's Game 3? It seems so logical, but logic is a lost art in sports these days. (An aside: Yo, FOXSports? Could you move that RF camera back about a foot?--could ya?)
**John Kincaid is part of ESPN radio's Sunday morning line-up and he's funny and quite interesting, which given the state of ESPN, is quite revealing. I'd rather hear Kincaid on the main radio schedule gig; Kincaid's weekly schmooze with Beano Cook, the 'pope of college football is a hoot. Yes a 'hoot. Take that.
**Baseball ratings are through the roof, which can only mean look for games to run into Thanksgiving and Christmas, and perhaps even New Years' next year. Maybe baseball can adapt a BCS system and really go viral.
**Ryan Leong is doing fill-in traffic and sports on KCBS and KNBR. What? Kate Scott was busy?
**Now, if only ESPN radio could siphon 'Mike and Mike to Saturday, midnight.
**No truth to the rumor that Cal Trans Bart Ney was responsible for the slogan, "traffic and weather together", but wait!, he does have another Bay Bridge update. (Still not opening; get back to me in an hour.)
**Sure, I can rip with authority, but I compliment too: KNBR's Gary Radnich had a pretty decent interview with Tony LaRussa, although I wish Tone would come clean on the bizarre, truly hideous act of hiring Mark McGwire. Like, WHY? To Radnich' credit, he tried, but LaRussa stuck to the same old tired shtick he's used in the past. Loyalty is one thing, but unless McGwire has pictures of Tony, why the hell why?
**NBC Bay Area's duo of Tom Sinkovitz and Jessica Aguirre: good newscast, solid delivery by both, and Aguirre 'eye candy element. What's not to like?
**Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area: $20 billion spent on studios and TV monitor banks, $56 for the coffee and snacks, $12 for security...on-air talent? Priceless. Just make sure Papa's hair is set and Radnich and Willie get permanent clearance. We demand it. Move that meter!
**THIS JUST IN: The Bay Bridge is still not open.
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Nellie is amusing, but your comment that "Instead, we get a lot of giggling." is true of every show on KNBR except for Damon's "I'm angry and hate ESPN" act.
ReplyDeleteRadnich's show today was flat; even Bruno was "phoning it in."
So, Big Vin, did you just hear Ralph's statement that "every woman that Cable has been with is coming out of the woodwork" in regards to the allegations against him? Two women? Can "the Razor" become even less of an objective observer/journalist/broadcaster? Maybe as soon as he gets Nellie's d*** out his mouth and quits indicting people before all of the facts are in, eh? Is he on ESPN's payroll? I almost broke a promise I made when Susquehanna squashed every good personality in the 3-7 shift on the Ticket 1050, because they were competing with their baby, I just almost picked up the phone to rage. But that would just fuel the fool.
ReplyDelete"NBC Bay Area's duo of Tom Sinkovitz and Jessica Aguirre: good newscast, solid delivery by both, and Aguirre 'eye candy element. What's not to like?"
ReplyDeleteEr, Aguirre as eye candy? More like mouth candy; she's had so much collagen and/or Botox injected there that it looks like a pair of old-time wax candy lips. By comparison, though, Aguirre has done much less to mess up her visage than Cheryl "Jocelyn Wildenstein" Jennings. Someone should have told her to back away from the scalpel about 3 facelifts ago.
" Can "the Razor" become even less of an objective observer/journalist/broadcaster?"
ReplyDeleteIn a word, NO. "The dull Razor" reached his valley of journalistic despair when he took Bond's ex-GF to task for her Playboy article, but admitted during the interview that he had never read the article.