I actually thought this would happen. Give credit to Bill Simmons, via one of his maibags, for acknowledging that it has:
Q: Clark Kellogg is talking about baking soda and Jim Nantz has to do everything including telling viewers that Blake Griffin is being doubled every time down the floor. Admit it. You miss me, don’t you?
– Billy P, Las Vegas
SG: I kinda sorta do. I have to admit. Here’s the best example I can come up with: My street needed to be paved for two years. I learned where all the potholes were, avoided them and never stopped bitching about it. But you know what? I liked bitching about it. When they finally paved the street and made it like every other street, I missed having that bitch crutch. If that makes sense. That’s how I feel during the 2009 men’s hoops tournament. I even turned against Raftery and Bilas a couple of times just to keep my announcer-hating chops fresh. And I like those guys.
Packer had an attitude problem and said Neanderthal-ish things, but he wasn’t nearly as bad as he was perceived to be. He got ripped for things that, looked at closely, made no sense, which even if you still utterly loathe Packer, was at least an odd public service.
Clark Kellogg is just flatly abysmal. No attitude, no humor (although he occasionally cracks himself up), no edge, no take, no point of view, no nothing. There is no there there. I’d take Packer back in an instant.
