I must be watching a different Al Michaels than the rest of y'all.
He is TERRIBLE. Uninteresting, uninspiring, adds little to nothing to the game.
He has a pleasant (and comfortably familiar) enough voice, but he really adds nothing to my experience as far as deep basketball knowledge is concerned. To be fair, I haven't been watching too much of the Finals, but what I've seen has not been terribly attention-grabbing.
I far prefer the NBA on NBA Sunday afternoon team. What the hell are Michaels' credentials for calling the NBA anyway...and the Finals, no less...and the Finals featuring the Lakers' dream team no less than that!
I don't watch football, but I assume he must be a helluva talent if he's corralled MNF all these years. I assume he has great football knowledge, where does he get off calling hoops?
Two moments from these playoffs are a microcosm of how piss-poor his game-calling has been:
1) Derek Fisher's unbelievable shot with 0.4 to beat the shot. Michaels' call didn't give you nearly enough of a sense of the magnitude of that shot.
Great plays and great calls go hand in hand. Who can forget "I don't believe, what I just saw!" (Kirk Gibson, '88) or "The Giants Win the Pennant!" The calls are as memorable as the improbable plays they describe. But when a call sucks, it dilutes the grandeur of the achievement. Derek Jeter's play on Jeremy Giambi a couple years back (when he didn't slide) and Derek Fisher's shot in these playoffs are two of the most astounding plays in important games in recent memory. And the calls on both were awful.
2) This was really a joke...game 4 the other night, shortly after Kobe was called for the tech and the Pistons were shooting, ABC replayed the clip of Kobe actually getting called for the tech (they hadn't shown it live). Now, I as a fan could tell that the video was a replay for several reasons..number one, it was in semi-slo-mo (you know, when it looks like film, not video), and number two, the Pistons were in the middle of free throws! But there's Al Michaels, voice raised, excitement at a fevered pitch...you remember this?:
"And Kobe Bryant has just been called for ANOTH..."
...before he caught himself, realized that he was watching a VIDEO of the tech that was called a minute earlier, and came back to earth.
How absolutely idiotic is that? Again, it was apparent to me as a viewer that the video of was a re-play, not a live shot. But okay, I'd understand if someone watching TV next to me on the couch, and only half paying attention, if they mistakenly thought that Kobe was getting a second foul. But how the hell does Al Michaels, who's at the game LIVE, make that mistake? HELLO -- you're sitting at courtside, don't you see that what's on the monitor is NOT LIVE? How can anyone make such an idiotic error for even an instant? And how is he calling the play-by-play, from the big sweaty bodies playing ball 3 feet in front of his face, or from a little monitor on his desk?
Very, very odd.
