Disappointed in Barrett and Rice

barrett has long been an excuse maker

and a death to someone close to you always makes you lose your focus on things around you

Not knowing if it was mentioned in passing or elaborated on more broadly.

who were practically rooting for the Bulls the whole time. And when Dante made that foul because he was hustling at the end of the first quarter, they called it a stupid rookie mistake and sounded really angry. Needless to say, barf worthy.

They actually specifically said that Maurice Lucas’ death wasn’t an excuse for playing bad, but that it could have contributed. Totally different.

to mention that losing someone close to you might effect your performance?
I don’t understand why you would be dissapointed in the mikes.

What if the 3-0 start was a “win one for Luke” scenario. He has been in pretty bad shape since before the season started from what I have heard. Are you really going to hate on the mike’s for suggesting that Lucas’ passing might have broken the team down a little? If Maurice Lucas’s death didnt have anything to do with the blazers lackluster performance, than this team must not have a pulse.

Reading Roy’s comments on Lucas was all I needed to hear to draw a conclusion.

Ay least LA played good enough to avoid another post like this.

You may look at it like a convenient excuse for them, but it’s possible they were going to use whatever opportunity arose to point out the significance of Lucas to the team. Had the outcome been reversed, they probably would have said the memory of Luke inspired their play.

They were pretty terrible… Reminded me of how two-three years ago Mike Rice would complain about every single call even if it was obviously the right call… In my opinion this is something the Mikes have improved in a fair amount.
Not trying to discredit what your saying about them making excuses or anything (I didn’t listen to the Mikes tonight), just saying listening to some of the other teams personal announcers makes me think the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Insult to injury

on to the next game. Even the best team in the league loses a game because of a bad night.

Mike Barrett seems to always accuse some player of traveling ever single game.

I like listening to Barrett and Rice call the game because of their passion. But if a Blazer game is on national TV and I have a choice of watching it on CSN or the ESPN I watch it on ESPN so I can listen to somewhat fair and balanced commentary. Also I watch it on ESPN because I love Hubie Brown’s analysis.

Also I think Barrett and Rice are to blame for hyping up players and making fans believe that they’re better than they are. Then when that player doesn’t live up to what Barrett and Rice said they’d be then the fans are disappointed.

During LaMarcus and Brandon’s rookie year they said LaMarcus would be like Karl Malone in 4 years and Brandon would be like Oscar Robertson. Also comparing Batum to Scottie Pippen, Oden to Bill Russell, Shaq, or David Robinson depending on the day. During last nights game Mike Rice said that Greg Oden and Joel Pryzbilla look really good in their workouts. Like who cares!?!? I want to see them back on the court. They constantly overhype and overrate players. At one point they said that Patty Mills would be like Tony Parker. Barrett said he wouldn’t trade Batum for anyone in the league unless the Blazers got a top 5 player in return, and even then he’d have to think about it. It’s that kind of crap that fans buy into and believe. They think because Barrett and Rice are close to the team that they know what they’re talking about. It gets ridiculous. If you listen to Barrett and Rice everyone on the Blazers is an all star caliber player. It just gets annoying sometimes.

A team shoots 60%, a rotation player gets a career high (40!), Aldridge breaks out of his slump, and a bunch of Blazers (including Brandon) score ZERO points in the first half…

Something WAS different about this game. Do you suppose that the death of the team’s close friend, mentor, and role model was completely unrelated to these differences, or do you leave room for the possibility that:

- The team’s focus, energy, or emotions were somehow impacted by the death of Lucas
- Some players (and coaches) might have changed their normal pre-game routines due to this news (including sleep, etc)
- Players might have wanted to “win one for Maurice” but not played the way they normally do in an attempt to do so
- The coaches and players didn’t have 100% focus or ability to find a way to win this one

Honestly, I didn’t expect the Blazers to go into Chicago and win their 4th in a row, but I didn’t expect the game to go as it did, either. Something was unusual. It’s not a stretch, or even unreasonable, for Barrett to point out the obvious.

If you have a problem with Barrett’s lack of impartiality, then just say that, but you might try “pointing the finger elsewhere” (as you put it) when it comes to this particular example.

…I think there are plenty of reasons one can either like Barret and RIce or dislike Barret and Rice. But given the integral connection Maurice Lucas had with The City of Portland and The Franchise in general along with the specific relationships with individuals on the team and working for the team, I can’t fault Barret and Rice for implying that Maurices passing might of affected the teams play negatively last night.

  Infact in this case, I give them some kudos for mentioning it. The easy thing to do would be to follow the protocal of ignoring it.

  In the past, I have been critical of what I perceive is a lack of sincere critical observation and commentary from most all of “Blazer Broadcasting”. But in this case….Nope…I’m letting this one go…..

Whether he should have said it or not, it’s definitely something to consider and may very well be true.

Could have just been bad play (which is was either way) but I bet you the guys on this team were closer to Coach Luke than any other coach.

Luke dying had no more effect on the guys he worked with, laughed with, ate with, shared stories with, mentored, socialized with, etc. than a door closing. It’s inexcusable that M&M would dare to consider otherwise. What a pair of losers. Fire them! And fire Nate while you’re at it.

Watching LeaguePass, i get a sampling of other teams local announcers. Although it’s not a full sample, I would say, Mike & Mike are in the upper echelon of announcers.

Based on the greatest TWO-MAN announcing combo of all time, Kevin Calabro and Marques Johnson, I like to award “KevMarques” to announcing teams, it’s based off of:

Excitement and Gravitas: Do they get excited for big plays/amazing plays? Can they build tension for important plays? M&M do well to get hyped for great plays, even for the other team. 8 of 10.

Knowledge of players and the league: Announcers should know every player in the league, even D-League call-ups. Considering it’s their job to follow basketball, they should know every player who’s been in the league, ever 1st-Round rookie, and be aware of the 10-20 D-League players who are most likely to be called up. They should also know (unlike last nights Buck announcers) that, for example, Brandon Roy and John Brockman overlapped at UW. They should also know coaches, and the ‘inside story’, like which players are friends and which are beefing between teams. M&M get 7 of 10 KevMarques.

Basketball Knowledge: Beyond what even well informed fans know. They should be able to decipher why coaches make certain moves, put in certain guys, look for certain matchups. They should be able to say stuff like “The pick & roll isnt working because they don’t respect so-and-so’s jump shot”. This also includes things that are obvious in person but not on TV. M&M gets 7.5 KM’s here.

Homerism: Too much homerism is a bad thing, but no homerism at all is also bad. I want the announcer (a local one, at least) to be announcing YOUR team playing basketball. They should be objective about the play, but prefer for your guys to do better. M&M are too homerish, they get 3 of 10 KM’s.

Report and Comedy: The guys need to get along, be able to riff off of and on to each other. Calabro and Johnson got an 11 out of 10 on this scale, it’s like they were brothers from other mothers. M&M, again solid, 7.5 KM’s.

Voice and Variety: I swear to god I will exhume Chick Hearn’s spinning corpse just to strangle it if I ever hear the word “timeline” in relationship to halfcourt again. You’ve got to change up your calls. Again, Calabro alone probably invented 18,000 different ways to describe a player driving to the hoop (although his star on top of the tree, ‘Rack Gold’ was coined by Johnson) and thus gets 14 of 10 possible KMs. M&M are plus on voice, average on variety, so they get 6 KM’s.

Bafoonery: The last category is avoiding big mistakes, like saying “Sasha, that’s a girls name” about an NBA player during the action. Calling guys by the wrong name, blatantly saying a play went one way when the replay shows the exact opposite and then claiming that the replay exhonerates you anyhow, those are signs of Bafoons. Mike Rice gets a 1.5, but the levelheaded Barrett brings them up to… 3.0 of 10 KM’s.