Thorpe says Mike and Tommy are not "informed"

[Chris]

hes just mad he doesnt have fans the way tommy does. mike is not bias @ all.  and we love tommy so he can go screw

he also seems to miss the fact that it's a local market.

If i wanted sterile, "we never criticize anyone or anything because it's mean" commentary I'd watch Miller and albert games.

National games, much like the NFL are boring because everyone and everything is a great play, or a great call, or a great throw because they don't want to offend anyone. It leads to bland, boring calls. **

If im watching MY team i want my announcers to talk about my teams and players. I don't care about the other sides guys, they arent on my team.

Exactly. I love it when Tommy says it's a clear charge and it was really a very clear block haha. There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing your team love.

Plus, I don't have the hear all the bull about Lebron being god, and Kobe being MJ.

My favorite was the other night when he gushed about how Avery Bradley challenged a layup (and picked up the foul), saying that he rotated perfectly, and it was just proof that he was starting to get it.  Unfortunately, if you watch the whole play, the reason he was able to challenge that shot was because he couldn't find his man, and was completely lost in no mans land, but got lucky when the guy came right into where he was floating.

I went back to verify what I knew to be correct about that play (and another sign of things Tommy sees that most don't) it was 6'8 Derrick Brown he fouled on the play correctly anticipating someone else's guy before they got to the rim.

So Tommy gets a TP

I vehemently disagree.  If you watch the entire play, you will see that he was completely lost for most of it, and was only there able to defend Brown, because he couldn't find his own man. 

[Birdbrain]

In today's chat, I called him out on his comments from last week, but he responded to someone else who did the same:

Jacob (Boston) Really? Tommy Heinsoh uninforrmed? Really? 8 time champ as a player, 2 times as a coach and he's uninformed? Say he's biased and as a non bostonian that impedes your ability to enjoy the game, say he complains about the officiating too much. But get uninformed outta here. Don't even get me started about how wrong you regarding Mike Gorman.

David Thorpe  (12:14 PM) He understands the game, but rarely the players beyond the superstar.

Sounds like a backpedal to me.

That sounds like idiotic tripe to me. 

[Birdbrain]

hes just mad he doesnt have fans the way tommy does. mike is not bias @ all.  and we love tommy so he can go screw

he also seems to miss the fact that it's a local market.

If i wanted sterile, "we never criticize anyone or anything because it's mean" commentary I'd watch Miller and albert games.

National games, much like the NFL are boring because everyone and everything is a great play, or a great call, or a great throw because they don't want to offend anyone. It leads to bland, boring calls. **

If im watching MY team i want my announcers to talk about my teams and players. I don't care about the other sides guys, they arent on my team.

Exactly. I love it when Tommy says it's a clear charge and it was really a very clear block haha. There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing your team love.

Plus, I don't have the hear all the bull about Lebron being god, and Kobe being MJ.

My favorite was the other night when he gushed about how Avery Bradley challenged a layup (and picked up the foul), saying that he rotated perfectly, and it was just proof that he was starting to get it.  Unfortunately, if you watch the whole play, the reason he was able to challenge that shot was because he couldn't find his man, and was completely lost in no mans land, but got lucky when the guy came right into where he was floating.

I went back to verify what I knew to be correct about that play (and another sign of things Tommy sees that most don't) it was 6'8 Derrick Brown he fouled on the play correctly anticipating someone else's guy before they got to the rim.

So Tommy gets a TP

I vehemently disagree.  If you watch the entire play, you will see that he was completely lost for most of it, and was only there able to defend Brown, because he couldn't find his own man. 

That doesn't make any sense.  He stopped someone else's guy from getting to the rim.  It wasn't his guy so you are disagreeing vehemently for no reason.  Now I suggest you go back and watch that play again.

[looseball]

I don't mind Thorpe, he is as IP says very biased towards his clients.

But for all of those who go through Tommy's playing accomplishments, plenty of great players are idiots when it comes to the sport they play. If you've had the "pleasure" of listening to Joe Morgan announce or give analysis you've seen a good example of that.

The "pleasure" of listening to Joe Morgan gives me the pleasure of hitting "mute".

[looseball]

Gotta agree. Celtics and Spurs are both pretty bad. Tommy is one of the most unpleasant to listen to in the league when he starts screaming. Spurs have homerism issues too, though they don't make ears bleed.

Tommy is a bit of a broken record in commentary, but I'm not sure many local color guys are that up to date anyway.

There is a difference between being uninformed and being a homer, no? No sane person who knows basketball can accuse Mike or Tommy or being uninformed.

The Spurs guys are homers. I can't vouch for how up to date they are on players.

Tommy is a homer, and is far from elite when it comes to being informed. People mention completely unrelated stats in this thread. Being informed requires keeping up on current players, not guys from 20 years ago. Tommy is so caught up in nonsense during his commentary, that it isn't that clear how much knowledge he has about guys. But since I have heard plenty of guys from other teams who don't seem that up to date, I'm not sure there is anything particularly bad about Tommy in that respect.

I can see how fans who like homerism for their team would like Tommy. Fair enough. But those fans should also be able to accept that Tommy is one of the worst announcers for non-Celtics fans to listen to because he adds almost nothing to the game for them. If someone asks a non-Celtics fan with league pass who is the worst color guy in the NBA and they mention Tommy, what is wrong with them saying that? Aren't they obviously correct from that non-Celtics fans' perspective?

To be fair to Tommy, he does talk a lot about offensive and defensive systems that many color guys across the league don't try to tackle, so it is dangerous to critique him on that. I would hope that Thorpe is only talking about his current player knowledge. Thorpe should have avoided the 'informed' part and just stuck to 'most unpleasant to listen to' or 'most biased during a game'. Or even most one-sided in his information, which I would concede is a good trait for the home crew since the home fans want to hear about what their team should do.

I hate the Lakers, but I love their color commentator's neutrality during games. I am jealous, though I can understand why some prefer someone like Tommy. If I had to listen to a Lakers commentator whose bias so blinded him to the actual action on the court and often caused him to start yelling, I would mute the TV (as I often do to Tommy) and say he was the worst color guy in the league.

If you are the type who is into the "us versus them" and likes those who publicly embrace that, well, no problem. But of course Thorpe thinks our broadcasts bring little to the table because it is so hard to get past the bias. The reality is that it is a general consensus among disinterested fans that Tommy is bad. (remember that graph from like 2 years ago?) This doesn't mean Celtics fans shouldn't like them. It just means that only Celtics fans like them.

There are actually broadcasts on NBATV where I can't tell which team's broadcast crew is on. As an NBA fan who is watching 2 teams I have no stake it, that is very pleasant.

  Tommy seems to have plenty of comments on current players. Who you need to stick with, who you need to force to their right or left, who's not going to try and stop the Celts if they go to the hoop, who's going to settle for jumpshots because they don't want to take it to the hole. I'd say he knows as much of that stuff if not more than the national announcers.

That's it exactly!  Being "informed" to me means knowledge of the game, not knowledge of the stats.  And being the color man means adding color to the broadcast, which the best announcers do by offering expertise with a flair that the viewers find entertaining.
I'd put Tommy up there in the John Madden class of announcers.

[tenn_smoothie]

uh, i always kinda thought the local tv & radio guys were supposed to be biased for their team. what fun would it be if they were completely neutral - like someone said earlier, i can tune into the networks if i want that.

i loved johnny most especially because he was the biggest homer in the business !!!! he loved the celts and hated the opponent and didn't apologize to anyone for it.

these other franchises just don't have the special history that makes the celtics so unique - i mean who else has a tv guy with a retired number who won multiple rings with that organization as both a player and a coach along with a radio guy with a retired number as well who also won rings and was the finals mvp. then add in having had one of the most famous play-by-play guys in pro sports who was with the team from the very early years and was also retired to the rafters with the rest of the HOF players, coaches and original owner.

there is simply no other franchise quite like the Boston Celtics.


God Bless You Tommy & Cornbread & Johnny & Red & Walter.

[BballTim]

  Different semantics I guess. I don't know that I'd consider people with more knowledge of rotation players on other teams but less understanding of the game to be more in touch with today's nba.

If he were a political journalist who had a great understanding of how politics works but lacked knowledge of people outside of his particular beat (let's say he primarily covers city politics and doesn't pay that much attention to the rest of the state or country), would "not particularly informed" be an adequate description of him?

  Kind of, but that's not the exact point I was making. But, ok, two guys report on the bills in congress, the first of which can give you a detailed biography on the congressman who presents the bill (where they're from, how conservative or liberal they are, their voting record and the like) where the second guy can't, but can read their bill and tell you why parts of it are worded in certain ways, what parts of it are meant to appease different voting blocks, and how the bill is likely to look after they compromise with the senate. You could say the second guy is somewhat ignorant or uninformed compared to some of the other reports, but would you say that modern politics have passed him by?

I think people are saying, what if the second guy could tell you all that in the abstract, but couldn't tell you who everyone is in the Senate and how they are likely to vote? 

  I understand what people are saying, and either I disagree with much of it or you're really exaggerating their point.

Anyways, the initial claim wasn't that basketball has passed Tommy by, just that he is relatively uninformed. Which, since it wasn't specified, may just mean that he's not sufficiently up to speed on important NBA things like the latest news on the Miami Heat.

  Here's the quote: "He is a total homer, and has lost touch with today's NBA". I don't think that's the case.

I propose this test for how informed a commentator is.  How prepared would Tommy and Mike (or another team) be if they had to do call a game on short notice involving two teams they don't normally cover?  If you ranked all commentary teams by that criterion, about where would the Celtics duo rank?

  Maybe we need a test for how discriminating the listener is. What if announcer can recognize all of the players and tell you something about all of them, but most of their comments sound like they came right out of articles from espn or yahoo or the local papers? What if they say things like "the Celts are one of the worst rebounding teams in the league" or "Rondo is a big liability on offense" or stale things from last year like "Glen Davis gets a ton of shots blocked from the inside"? Would you consider them to be well informed?

[Chris]

hes just mad he doesnt have fans the way tommy does. mike is not bias @ all.  and we love tommy so he can go screw

he also seems to miss the fact that it's a local market.

If i wanted sterile, "we never criticize anyone or anything because it's mean" commentary I'd watch Miller and albert games.

National games, much like the NFL are boring because everyone and everything is a great play, or a great call, or a great throw because they don't want to offend anyone. It leads to bland, boring calls. **

If im watching MY team i want my announcers to talk about my teams and players. I don't care about the other sides guys, they arent on my team.

Exactly. I love it when Tommy says it's a clear charge and it was really a very clear block haha. There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing your team love.

Plus, I don't have the hear all the bull about Lebron being god, and Kobe being MJ.

My favorite was the other night when he gushed about how Avery Bradley challenged a layup (and picked up the foul), saying that he rotated perfectly, and it was just proof that he was starting to get it.  Unfortunately, if you watch the whole play, the reason he was able to challenge that shot was because he couldn't find his man, and was completely lost in no mans land, but got lucky when the guy came right into where he was floating.

I went back to verify what I knew to be correct about that play (and another sign of things Tommy sees that most don't) it was 6'8 Derrick Brown he fouled on the play correctly anticipating someone else's guy before they got to the rim.

So Tommy gets a TP

I vehemently disagree.  If you watch the entire play, you will see that he was completely lost for most of it, and was only there able to defend Brown, because he couldn't find his own man. 

That doesn't make any sense.  He stopped someone else's guy from getting to the rim.  It wasn't his guy so you are disagreeing vehemently for no reason.  Now I suggest you go back and watch that play again.

I watched it several times when it happened.  And it makes perfect sense, I think you are just misunderstanding what I am saying.  The issue wasn't whether he ended up there to challenge the shot.  He ended up in a decent position (although if it was a real rotation, he would have actually been late, which is why he had to foul rather than prevent the shot in the first place), but the problem is that Tommy said that he was in that position because he rotated correctly, and used it as an example that he is learning the defensive system.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  He was in that position by pure luck, and was actually out of position based on the defensive scheme.  It was pure luck that Tommy equated into basketball ability.  I found that funny, because it is what we have seen for years with clueless rookies who Tommy builds up.