Christmas is not a day for Heat, and Miami’s NBA entrant was no exception Thursday.
The Heat started fast, then got shaky. NBA’s new top analyst, Isiah Thomas, began shakily before improving slightly.
It’s unfair to judge Thomas’ talents from his debut. But he seemed tight early in the game, so Bob Costas was doing Thomas’ job as well as his own. For example, when Thomas suggested that the only way for the Heat to beat a very smart Bulls team was “by getting smarter,” Costas explained that the visitors also would need to get the majority of loose balls, hit their free throws and keep the Bulls off the offensive boards.
And so much for the theory that only the last two minutes of an NBA game count: Thomas had the Bulls “about to break it open” when the game was tied at 31-31.
Thomas’ boldest statement was that Scottie Pippen should be healthy enough to play in two or three weeks. During the halftime break, studio analyst Peter Vecsey agreed with that timetable, revived the Pippen-for-Eddie Jones trade rumor and said he and Thomas apparently “have the same sources.” Whether that’s good news is debatable.
If you’ve been to a Bulls home game recently, Costas and Thomas courtside at the United Center were a familiar sight. The duo did a couple of dry-run rehearsals here, going through their entire pregame, play-by-play and analysis for NBC eyes only.
Conceding that he’s got rust to shed after a long absence from basketball action, Costas said he expects his play-by-play and Thomas’ analysis to improve. Since Thomas was a player and a general manager/part-owner in the NBA, he has “plenty to say and just needs to learn to fit it in” within TV’s short time bursts, Costas said.
Although his job is primarily describing action and eliciting comment from Thomas, Costas said his role should permit him to do occasional commentary, which has been his forte.
As to the recent spate of ugly behavior among NBA stars, Costas clearly sides with the league’s right to punish those mega-salary athletes who are abusing “the good thing they all have.” He cited fired Golden State guard Latrell Sprewell as a very good player “but not essential to the NBA.”
’97 is almost Olber, mann: Keith Olbermann left ESPN and its Bristol, Conn., headquarters because the job was just too much sports and the town was just too little.
Although it came weeks before he announced his departure, his best-remembered parting shot came during a guest appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Host Craig Kilborn, also an ex-ESPNer, quizzes each guest with five genuine-to-goofy questions.
When asked to name the most God-forsaken place in the East, Olbermann chose Bristol.
Although he has moved to New York and cable network MSNBC, he hasn’t shed all vestiges of the other place: He has named his new commentary-interview program “The Big Show,” which he and ESPN on-air partner Dan Patrick called their “SportsCenter” effort and titled the book they co-authored.
And, as Al Pacino’s “Godfather” character discovered about trying to get out of the family business, sports keeps pulling Olbermann back in–whether it’s for stints on NBC’s World Series telecasts or a year-end sports retrospective.
That’s what he’ll be doing Saturday. Olbermann is host of “Sports Illustrated’s Year in Sports ’97,” a one-hour special airing at 2 p.m.
“The theme that holds up throughout the show is that this was a year of sports tradition mixed with new athletes and innovations,” Olbermann says.
That transition, he explains, ranges from baseball’s celebration of Jackie Robinson’s breaking major-league racial barriers a half-century ago to baseball’s innovation of interleague play breaking regular-season tradition. And retiring legends Tom Osborne and Dean Smith are leaving college sports just as youthful newcomers Tiger Woods and Martina Hingis are grabbing a share of the pro sports spotlight.
Asked if he’s comfortable still being summoned for sports assignments at a time when he’s recasting his role as more of a general news observer, Olbermann contrasted what he’s doing now with what he did at ESPN:
“My involvement with sports now is deep but narrow. It used to be wide but shallow.”
He likes the challenge of doing the “hard-news element” on his MSNBC show, but his employers still see him as a sports guy when they need one, and he says there have been “vague discussions about the Olympics.” But that’s still a few years away for NBC. First, CBS gets center stage with the Winter Games from Nagano, Japan.
For now, Olbermann says he likes the mix of news, features and sports: “I don’t have to do the slug work, so why tamper with this?”
And just as he’s not looking too far ahead, he’s apparently not looking back at ESPN in much anger. Just for fun, I asked him what is the most God-forsaken place in the East. “I used to know the answer to that,” he said, “but I just don’t remember anymore.”
