What is it with today’s announcers calling everyone the Great so and so. I am just waiting for somebody to be doing a piece and reference “the Great and under-appreciated contributor, Jud Buechler”. Okay, so now that Bill Walton is no longer announcing it might not happen, but suddenly there are no bad players anymore.

It has to do with announcing, I think. The announcers have become conciliatory to a fault. Bill Walton actually compared Boris Diaw to a Beethoven piece in the sense that they are both classical? ESPN announcers reference everyone as either legendary, great, or my own personal hero.

Case in point is Jim Rome. He made his chops by dissing Jim Evert. Since then he has done nothing but complement people in a choppy cadence. This is a guy who literally made his name by insulting people and then as soon as Jim Evert tosses him like a body double in a Don Johnson clip he becomes the biggest proponent of pro-athletes’ skills since every woman Wilt has ever met.

What they need to do more of is pair these conciliatory announcers with people who will call them on it. When Walton was with Stephen A. Smith they had the match made in heaven. Bill Walton was waxing poetic about the way new sneakers were not only fantastic fashion but also revolutionized the way players were running and how fast, or some such nonsense and Smith would be flailing in apparent pain in the background only to challenge him on just how crazy he sounded.

Enter the ultimate call-your-bluff announcer, Charles Barkley. We need to get Bill Walton out of retirement and pair him with Charles Barkley. Please. Please. Seriously, please. Now that would be