Banging the boards for more media notes
More to tunnel through after the remarks about the NBA playoffs in today's media column, and everything else that has people talking out the sides of their mouths:
**NBA**
==TNT's Reggie Miller, on the Lakers' chances of winning the NBA title without Andrew Bynum returning:
"Can the Lakers win without Bynum? No. If he does come back, Phil Jackson is going to put him in the role that he was in before he was injured and averaging a double-double. All he has to do is rebound and block shots, the scoring will (fall on) Kobe, Pau and Lamar. If he comes back and plays 12 minutes a game, average six to eight rebounds and three blocked shots, (the Lakers) will win it hands-down.”
==ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy, on the Lakers' chances of winning the NBA title without Andrew Bynum returning:
"Bynum helps, but they're the favorite team even without him. If it does come back, it'll be interesting to see if (Jackson) pairs him with Pau Gasol. I'm not sure you put Bynum and Gasol and Odom on the floor together, even if they're your best three front-line players. Will they compliment each other when Odom is at the four with either Bynum or Gasol?"
==More from Van Gundy on how the Lakers' season played out, from crazy summer to current leaders in the Western Conference:
"When you hijack another team's best player for a third-string point guard, that will always help you. If you put Gasol on the Rockets, without Yao, would they be more of a force? Would Phoenix be better with Gasol? Would New Orleans have a better chance (with Gasol)? Take a third-string point guard for a 20/10 guy."
==From Sports Illustrated's cover story this week on the NBA playoffs pointing toward a Lakers-Celtics "Perfect Ending: final:
“Boston-L.A. would be riveting,” says Orlando Magic senior vice president Pat Williams, “because old rivalries never go away. They smolder under the surface and, with the slightest ignition, explode.”
==The annoucing pairings that TNT will throw out during its 40 games in 40 night of playoff coverage:
A-team: Marv Albert and Reggie Miller
B-team: Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins
C-team: Dick Stockton and Mike Fratello
D-team: Matt Devlin and ... current Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy
Sideline reporters include Craig Sager, David Aldridge, Cheryl Miller, Pam Oliver, Marty Snider, Dei Lynam and Stephanie Ready.
And, of course, the studio chicanery of Charles Barkley and ... whoever else wanders in.
When it comes down to the Western Conference finals, Albert is paired up with Collins.
As for ESPN's little group of gabbers:
The ABC studio show put together Stuart Scott, Jon Barry and Michael Wilbon as Bill Walton continues to recover from back problems. The ESPN studio show has Mark Jones, Jalen Rose and Stephen A. Smith.
As for broadcasting teams:
A-team: Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, with Michele Tafoya (staring with Sunday's Lakers-Nuggets contest)
B-team: Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown
C-team: Dave Pasch and Rick Carlisle
C-plus-team: Dan Shulman and (eek, a girl) Doris Burke.
On ESPN Radio, there's Jim Durham and Dr. Jack Ramsay.
==And this little gem from Onion Sports:
**MLB**
==Thank the baseball gods that there's fiscal resolution in the case involving Harold Reynolds and his wrongful termination case against ESPN, but details won't come out, as per the out-of-court settlement.
Reynolds had reportedly been asking for a $5 million chunk of change in lost wages.
Perhaps, his story will come out after the blog site, www.huggingharoldreynolds.com, put up a check for $75.34 in hopes Reynolds would be enticed to give his exclusive side to the Internet home of his name sake.
All we're led to believe is that Reynolds, who worked at ESPN from 1995 to 06, gave someone a "brief and innocuous" hug that was cause for some kind of sexual harassment lawsuit, and his early firing. He's since made a better career move with MLB.com on their online personality. Said ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys in a statement about how it all went down: "Our confidence in both the appropriateness of our action and our legal position never wavered. The resolution allows us to spare the people involved further difficult disruptions to their lives and is economically compelling to ESPN."
Reynolds in a statement added: "My wife and I are very happy to have achieved an amicable settlement. I feel my goals were satisfied, and I look forward now to concentrating on the game I love."
The news was big enough that ESPN's Karl Ravech announced the settlement during Tuesday's edition of "Baseball Tonight."
==Another Onion Sports headline and made-up story:
==Following up again on tonight's edition of KCAL Channel 9's "Think Blue TV" Dodger pregame show (leading into the Dodgers-Braves contest at 4:30 p.m.), the piece on Westlake Village's Jon Secrist is airing ... Stay tuned to the blog here for updates on his quest, which we chronicled in a story last July that has since been put up on the "Fun Is Good" blogsite of Saints co-owner Mike Veeck.
==The Dodgers-Braves series continues Saturday on Fox (Channel 11, 12:55 p.m., with Dick Stockton and Eric Karros calling it to 47 percent of the country) and is back on KCAL Channel 9 on Sunday (10:30 a.m.) despite the fact TBS is showing it as part of its national Sunday afternoon game of the week (it's blacked out in the team's markets, meaning some will either get a blank screen or the feed of CNN's Headline News instead on TBS).
==As part of Fox's regional MLB coverage Saturday, former big-league pitching coach Leo Mazzone will be with Matt Vasgersian to do the Cleveland-Minneosta game. Sounds like rockin-n-rollin Leo woulda been a natural for the Braves' game against the Dodgers. Vasgersian, on working with Mazzone: "Not only do I know I'll learn a lot about pitching, but I plan on joining him in his ab regime around mid-game - I could use the work.”
**NFL**
==We're supposed to get all pumped up for a two-hour "NFL Total Access 2008 Schedule Release Show Presented by GMC," which the NFL Network did from its Culver City studios on Tuesday?
Let us know when it's over. Or when Ed Roski's L.A. team gets put on the 2009 schedule.
Tuesday's NFL Network show lent itself to a lot of snappy conversation, such as:
“What’s the best game? It has to be the Patriots and the Colts (on NBC on Nov. 2) because they have the two best quarterbacks. You have Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and all the surrounding casts, and coaches Tony Dungy and Bill Belichick. This game has everything. I don’t know that in the regular season it can get any better.” -- NBC's John Madden.
"The Browns have five primetime games. Somebody thinks they are pretty good." -- Steve Mariucci
“Even the fans of Chicago and Cleveland know that their teams don’t deserve to be in primetime for five times” -- Solomon Wilcots.
NBC ends up with 16 games on Sunday night featuring 32 teams that made 25 playoff appearances in 2007 -- including three games with the Patriots. Of the 17 games with 34 teams that ESPN has for Monday night, there were only 14 playoff appearances -- including one game with the Patroits. Eleven other teams on ESPN's schedule had losing records in '07. Flex scheduling kicks in after Week 11 for NBC.
==Sirius Satellite Radio has given Sports Illustrated's Peter King a show on its NFL Radio spot (Channel 124) every Wednesday (4 to 7 a.m. PT) on "The Opening Drive" during the upcoming NFL season. In the offseason, King will co-host with Bob Papa and Randy Cross on the show as it airs 5 to 8 a.m. PT two mornings a week.
==Brett Favre co-hosts visits "Late Show with David Letterman" on Thursday (April 24), bill as "his first appearance on the Late Show since announcing his retirement from football earlier this year, and his first visit back to the CBS late night broadcast since Feb. 7, 1997, after the Packers defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI." Sounds like he's got something to announce, Green Bay fans.... Like the Top 10 reasons why Brett Favre should not stay retired.
**NHL**
==Versus says it's been getting an average or 294,040 viewers (0.3 rating) through the first six nights of the Stanley Cup playoffs, actually up 9.8 percent from last season. We tend to believe them. More people are actually finding Versus on their cable systems. Still, it would be better if all this stuff was on ESPN3.
**BOXING**
==Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman and Emanuel Steward will call Saturday's Bernard Hopkins-Joe Calzaghe light heavyweight bout from Las Vegas on Saturday (6:45 p.m.) This bout marks the 43-year-old Hopkins’ 16th appearance on HBO. Fans can watch the live weigh-in on HBO's website today at 2:30 p.m.
==ESPN has had enough of "The Contender" reality series, and who can blame 'em. After two seasons on the network, following its debut on NBC, the show may have punched itself out of story lines. Or maybe not, say those who want to keep it going. Ron Wechsler, ESPN's VP of series development and production, told ESPN.com that the network couldn't come to financial terms with show promoter Tournament of Contenders. Jeff Wald, one of the show's executive producers, said he's in the process of making another deal with another network. Spike, you say? Keep talkin' ...
**MISC.**
==Onion Sports, to the rescue again:
==Final numbers from visitors to NCAA March Madness on Demand at CBSSports.com: 4,759,306 unique visitors from the first game on March 20 to the title game on April 7. That's a 164 percent jump from 1.8 million visitors in 2007 (when it was only available through the Elite Eight). As for consumption, there were nearly 5 million total hours of live streaming video and audio taken in versus 2.7 million hours a year ago. Meaning, a lot of people would have enjoyed the tournament more if they watched on their HD TV sets instead of squinting into their computer monitors. But it was free.
==FSN's Jim Watson has another sit-down with David Beckham that airs in the 6:45 p.m. "Galaxy Live" pregame show before the Galaxy-Houston telecast Saturday at 7:30 p.m. This is the second of 18 Galaxy games that FSN West does this season.
==ESPN and The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club have finalized a six-year agreement for continued coverage of Wimbledon through 2013, including more digital and international rights. ESPN has televised an extensive Wimbledon schedule since 2003, plus Spanish-language coverage in the U.S. via ESPN Deportes.
ESPN2’s schedule will go about 100 hours, including one women's and one men's semifinal.
==One more Onion for the road:
==For its Sunday "Outside the Lines" episode (6:30 a.m. on ESPN, 9 a.m. on ESPNEWS), an exclusive with
Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, the alleged mastermind of the most judging scandal during the figure skating scoring at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. It's his first interview with a non-Russian TV network, as ESPN correspondent John Barr went to Moscow to do it.
"I would like the American audience to know the truth about me, that all that’s being written about me is completely untrue," says Tokhtakhounov. "(I'm) a successful businessman, a patron of the arts, a community worker. That’s what I call myself today."
We're just please we spelled your name correctly in two different places of that item.
==The first of four ESPN Films documentaries airing in a Tuesday night window of world TV premieres starts with "Hellfighters," directed by Jon Frankel , about an against-all-odds high school football team, on ESPN2 at 6 p.m. this Tuesday. In subsequent Tuesdays, ESPN2 will debut "The Streak" (about a high school wrestling team’s 34-year win streak); "Bud Greenspan: At the Heart of the Games" (about the famed Olympics filmographer) and "The Zen of Bobby V" (about Bobby Valentine and baseball in Japan).
The synopsis on "Hellfighters": Harlem's only high school football team, under coach Duke Fergerson, overcome empty bleachers, sparce practice space and a board of education bureaucracy to play. It includes a 30-minute ending that updates what happened to the players and coaches.
==Versus has live coverage of the 112th Boston Marathon (Monday, 6:30 a.m.) for the fourth year in a row. A camera will be following the progress of former Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong as he compete in the race, qualifying by finishing the recent New York Marathon in 2:46.43 (qualifying for men aged 35-39 is 3:15). Why doesn't he just enter the bike portion of the race? He'd win.
**AND FINALLY**
==ESPN expects Suzy Kolber to be part of the two-day NFL Draft coverage next weekend. Why would it be a question.
Because she dropped a kid last month.
"It's a private matter," Suzy's dad, Gene, told the Philadelphia Daily News when the newspaper asked about the paternity of the father.
The baby girl, Kellyn, was born in Connecticut to the 43-year-old Kolber, who kept it hidden well during assignments leading up to the birth by being photographed mostly from the waist up during her assignments for NASCAR and "Monday Night Football."
And then there's the kid's name. There's a way to start a rumor about paternity (see attached baby clothes with Cleveland Browns logos on 'em)
The Philadelphia Inquirer also said that her dad Gene, a marketing executive, indicated that a reference on his daughter's Wikipedia page to an "early 2008" marriage was erroneous. It has since been removed.
All this means: Joe Namath is not in the picture. Maybe.
It also gives us reason to point you toward the new domain of the blog KissingSuzyKolber.com.
Comments
Was Reynolds wrongfully terminated. Probably so. The sad fact is that most people who suffer from sexual harassment, are the ones that never report the offense. In my years as a human resource professional, I have witnessed this time and time again. Just as sad, is that a number of reported sexual harassment incidents are actually people trying to get back at a boss that they do not like or resent for some reason. Sometimes the reason is as simple as envy. I detail these situations and offer solutions in my book, Wingtips with Spurs: Lessons From the Ranch. In fact, I devote an entire chapter to these issues. Until we learn deep, moral lessons, there will be prey on both sides of the coin.
Posted by: Michael L. Gooch
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April 20, 2008 2:11 AM