Dribbling out more media slobber
Even more from ESPN/ABC analyst Hubie Brown , following his assessment of the Lakers' Pau Gasol in today's media column, with some more paragraphs to drool over:
==Brown, on how Gasol was in his early years of the NBA when he coached him at Memphis:
"When we coached him in '03 and '04, one of the first things we tried to change was his strength. He started working out more with the weight guys. He was also extremely bright, and no one laughed when he talked about being a doctor when this was all over. Naturally, you can be impressed by his parents (both in the medical profession in Spain, and both played second-division basketball) and they're wonderful people."
==On the impact he's made with the Lakers:
"Everyone talks about how this is the first time he's played with a player like Kobe. Forget that. This is the first time he's been with a power forward as good as Lamar Odom. They compliment one another. You're seeing that in this (Utah) series, no one player can guard Kobe. Or Pau. So Odom's points and assists are up. Odom has to be played man-to-man because everyone else doubleteams Kobe and Pau. What makes it more dangerous is they're all three excellent passers, at the top of the list in the league at their positions. It makes it easy to stay in the flow especially when each can beat their men off the dribble
"The only guys I've ever seen able to guard Pau man-on-man was Kevin Garnett and Karl Malone, otherwise you've got to double him. He can score with either hand, and dribble with either hand."
==On what parts of Gasol's game that he can improve upon:
"You always want to go with more strength, and shoot a higher percentage at the foul line. He'll struggle with that at times. But as far as jumpshooting, his range, finishing with either hand, with his back to the basket ... he's got all that stuff to go right now."
**MORE HOOPS:
==For a look at the WNBA "Expect Great" ads that are debuting tonight on NBA playoff telecasts, click here for the spots by the Sparks' Candace Parker, as well as those done by the Detroit Shock's Cheryl Ford and the Indiana Fever's Tamika Catchings .
==The non-Laker NBA playoff game lineup this weekend:
Saturday: Detroit at Orlando Game 4: Dan Schulman and Doris Burke, 2 p.m., ESPN
Saturday: Boston at Cleveland Game 3: Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, 5:15 p.m., Channel 7
Sunday: New Orleans at San Antonio Game 4: Marv Albert and Reggie Miller, 5:15 p.m., TNT.
Monday: Boston at Cleveland Game 4: Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins, 5:15 p.m., TNT.
==TNT's studio guys are smellin' up the studio Sunday, for a decent reason.
Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith will go barefoot on the set Sunday to raise awareness for Samaritan's Feet, a charity that tries to help outfit 10 million impoverished children worldwide. Samaritan's Feet founder Manny Ohonme will join the TNT crew after the New Orleans-San Antonio game.
==TNT's Doug Collins, during Wednesday's Lakers-Jazz telecast, comparing the Lakers to a certain golfer who's coming off knee surgery: "The Lakers have looked them down and the Jazz need to dig in their heels and compete and show the Lakers that they think they can beat them. It's almost like when you play golf against Tiger Woods and you're getting ready to tee it up and you think, 'I can play great tonight, but I still don't think I can beat him.' The Jazz are a good team, they've got to start playing with some confidence."
==Credit Deadspin.com for finding a link to ESPN touting Detroit's Richard Hamilton as "The Flomax Difference Maker" graphic.
"You see, this is what's going to continue to happen while Baby Boomers control the pursestrings," writes editor Will Leitch. "If you don't think we're a couple years away from the LeBron James MedicAlert Bracelet NBA Finals MVP Award. And, inevitably, the Mitchell-Jerden Funeral Home MLB All-Star Game. Though, by then, they'll probably scratch and claw for the Crystal Cryogenics 500."
**GOLF:
==NBC's team at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass is, of course, Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller at the 18th, reporters Gary Koch (16th hole) and Bob Murphy (14th), on-course reporters Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing and Dottie Pepper; general assignment poet Jimmy Roberts and Bob Costas, who does some interviews as well.
NBC has 10 of its 42 cameras at the 17th island hole, including a microscopic lens embedded in the lip of the tiny front bunker. Two of the cameras are in unusual spots -- one is on a crane 120 feet above the trees in front of the 16th fairway where it can see 16, 17 and 18. Another is ferried to the island off the 17th green, where the cameraman is marooned for about eight hours a day to get reaction shots on the 17th tee.
A record 94 balls were hit into the water off the 17th green in last year's event.
In addition to the cameras, the network has 21 microphones planted around to get a splash sound from every conceiveable spot. The PGA Tour site home page also has a webcam pointed on the 17th hole, so those frittering away work hours can have something to watch.
Maltbie said of the 17th hole: "I've ripped a few sleeves in there through the course of time. I used to make it a habit on Wednesday (during practice round), I'd fire one or two of them in there just to get it done. I figured I'd serve the Terrible Water God at 17 and I'd be done for the week."
More on Miller talking about Anthony Kim from Thursday's blog.
**HORSE RACING:
(Illustration by Bill Schorr)
==NBC says its Kentucky Derby coverage was the most-viewed in four years with 14.2 million eyeballs, up three percent over last year, even though the rating was flat at 8.8. NBC also has the Preakness on May 17, 1:30 p.m., where Big Brown tries to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.
==HBO's "Real Sports" installment that begins Monday (10 p.m.) includes a Bernard Goldberg report called "Hidden Horses" that, with hidden cameras, looks at how underperforming thoroughbreds are auctioned off and sent to the less humane and less regulated slaughterhouses across the border because the practice of killing horses no longer takes place in this country. Some of the thoroughbreds end up on the plates of European and Japanese diners who pay top dollar for the delicacy.
**NHL:
==ESPN has worked a deal where the CBC "Hockey Night in Canada" lightning rod Don Cherry joins its studio show with Barry Melrose starting tonight on SportsCenter after the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia game.
"Pairing Don Cherry and Barry Melrose will provide NHL fans with two of the most respected and opinionated voices in hockey today," said Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president, production. "SportsCenter will be the place to turn for Stanley Cup analysis, debate and highlights."
And the game itself, regretably, is on Versus.
Cherry said he will donate his ESPN fee to the Humane Society. Last year, NBC worked out a situation to have Cherry join the network on its Stanley Cup final telecast.
**BASEBALL:
==The L.A. market gets Fox's New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers contest on Saturday (12:55 p.m., Channel 11) with Dick Stockton and Eric Karros (along with 54 percent of the country). Other regions get Arizona at Chicago and St. Louis at Milwaukee. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have the weekend off.
==The Onion Sports headline of the week:
**BOWLING:
==Holy Schenkels: CBS, without any golf this weekend, has resorted to something it calls "Bowling's Clash of Champions," a two-day event (Saturday, 2 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m., Channel 2, a great lead-in for CBS 2's Sports Central) that was taped and edited from last week's event at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., where 16 champions from last year's U.S. Bowling Congress tournaments (including U.S. Open men's champ Pete Weber and U.S. Women's Open champ Liz Johnson) competed in a sudden-death format. The players, ranging in age from teenagers to seniors, were put in four groups and told to throw one shot on one of four lanes they pick. The player with the lowest pinfall was eliminated until one player remained. That player went into the semifinals, and the remaining two men and two women bowled against each other in a traditional format (that'll be Sunday's show) for a $50,000 first prize. Bill Macatee calls it, with Nelson Burton Jr. trying to figure it all out, plus non-Pennsylvania governor Lynn Swann as the gutter-side reporter.
**MISC.
==ESPN2 has an announcer-less Arena Football game on Monday (5 p.m., Philadelphia vs. Georgia) that will rely on analyst Ray Bentley to provide information in and out of commercial breaks, during time outs and when play is in the red zone -- isn't play always in the red zone in the AFL? Audio from seven on-field mikes attached to four players, two coaches and a referee will be enough.
==CBS has the taped package of the NCAA women's gymnastics finals from late last month, airing Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. Tim Brando and Amanda Borden provide the audio commentary.
==ESPN360.com signed a deal to carry Euroleague basketball games over the next two seasons, starting in October. Led by former Duke star Trajan Langdon, CSKA Moscow defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv 97-91 in this season's Euroleague Final last Sunday.
==ESPN, Inc. (that's ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic) will have live coverage of 31 games from the UEFA European Football Championship from June 7-29. Most are on ESPN2 (17), but ABC will do two matches -- a quarterfinal contest on June 21 and the title match Sunday, June 29 at 11:30 a.m. from Vienna, Austria, a game that will be preceeded by a Galaxy-DC United MLS contest at 9 a.m. that day to make it a doubleheader broadcast.
**AND FINALLY:
==Stuart Scott, never one to dangle a participle, has a colon over his shoulder. That is a colon, right?
ESPN talking heads, from Scott to Jim Rome to Woody Paige, are part of a PSA that urge the male audience members to inspect themselves, according to a story in the New York Times.
"In a world of donated media, nothing is more important than to get the right message across to the right audience," Advertising Council executive VP Priscilla Natkins says in the story. "It's hard to orchestrate this as finely as we'd like."
Scott recently underwent chemotherapy after a malignancy was discovered during an emergency appendectomy.
If the message comes from the messenger who knows what he's talking about, all the more power to him, and us.
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