FanHouse Nba Media Watch

In his NBA.com video recap of last Friday's Magic-Nets game, NBA TV analyst Rick Kamla made the unfortunate mistake of referring to New Jersey forward Yi Jianlian as a "Chinaman." After FanHouse contacted Turner Sports about the remark, the video was pulled from NBA.com. It ran on NBA TV Friday and has been available on NBA.com since Friday night.

Turner Sports spokesman Jeff Pomeroy relayed to FanHouse an apology to anyone offended by the remark from Kamla and the network, which manages NBA TV and NBA.com. Pomeroy said Kamla was not aware of the connotations of the word, and meant nothing malicious or offensive by it.

Some people won't think it's so horrible. As a matter of fact, some will cheer the announcement that because of back injury that was so bad he couldn't sit for long stretches, Bill Walton has announced he will give up announcing.

Walton, in a statement today: "As I return after a grueling multi-year, life-threatening, life-changing ordeal with back problems, it is time to dedicate the rest of my life to service. ... Thanks everybody -- for everything."

For many, Walton was a polarizing play-by-play man. Never one to withhold an opinion, you thought Walton either delivered verbal bon mots filled with liquid genius or that he was "theeeeeeeee worst announcer in the history of the NBA. No, not the NBA, the worrrrrrrrrrrld."

Don Nelson insisted again on Thursday, like he's been insisting since the start of training camp, that he's excited by his young Warriors team and that he is having fun coaching it.

But that's not the way it looks. Nelson has grown increasingly short with the media in the past year or so and his pregame press conferences are littered with one-word answers and uncomfortable silences.

One day after the Warriors lost to the Rockets 108-107, a radio host on the team's flagship station opened his program by saying it sure seemed like Nelson's heart wasn't in it anymore.

TNT's Inside the NBA may be the best studio show in sports, and Charles Barkley is a huge (both literally and figuratively) reason why.

Unfortunately for viewers at home, though, Barkley hopes to leave the show sometime soon, saying that he'd walk away from his career as a television pundit should the right opportunity in an NBA front office present itself.

Tuesday night's NBA TV show, hosted by Ahmad Rashad and featuring Chris Webber and Gary Payton, wasn't as good as the TNT version with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley in terms of pure basketball analysis. But in terms of pure comedy, that Tuesday show was solid gold.

And now, it's over.

Kevin McHale has been hired to replace Gary Payton in the studio, and while I think McHale will do just fine as an analyst, there's no way he'll have the same chemistry with Webber that Payton did. With the show obviously looking to get a little more serious, here's a reminder of some of the antics that made it so much fun to watch.

Ron Artest has never been afraid to tell it like he sees it, especially while being one of the athletes who chooses to interact with his fans through the use of social media. He's taken it places it didn't even need to go, really: like giving out his cell phone number, or ripping his former team over a contract issue that didn't even make any sense.

For a lot of fans, the unfiltered access is awesome; a way to truly see into the lives of one of their favorite players. But the direct contact might not be all it's cracked up to be -- especially in the case of one blogger, who unintentionally found himself on the wrong side of Artest's outgoing personality.

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

After adding notoriously shot-happy veterans like Zach Randolph and Allen Iverson to a young core that includes Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo and Mike Conley, how will Lionel Hollins keep everybody happy at the same time? Apparently by telling them it's every man for himself.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Wednesday, there are 34 days remaining.

He wasn't the best No. 34 who ever played the game -- that probably belongs to Hakeem Olajuwon or Shaquille O'Neal -- but he was the most controversial. And maybe the most contradictory.

Charles Barkley, who wore his 34 with both the Philadelphia 76ers and the Phoenix Suns, stood alone when it came to polarizing basketball fans.

Through his 16-year playing career, he had fans who absolutely adored him and the way he played the game. He had fans who absolutely hated him, for the way he played, the way he acted, and for the things he said.

Jon Stewart returned from hiatus for the first Daily Show in three weeks, and he came back with a pretty large bang. Not only did he thrash Joe Wilson and Glenn Beck (par for the course), but he also welcomed on this fella named LeBron James.

James, as you may know, is fairly decent at basketball. Stewart, in case you didn't know, is a huge Knicks fan. What would amount to "recruiting violations" in college ensues. Watch the video after the jump.

I'm not sure if I ever said, "We'll go out of business before the Denver Nuggets ever win another playoff series.''

If I did, I was right.

I covered the Nuggets for 6 1/2 years for the Rocky Mountain News, a stretch that included Denver going 4-20 in five straight first-round series and never coming close to advancing. Then the Rocky fouled out at the end of February, and what did the Nuggets soon do? Win two playoff series and come close to forcing Kobe Bryant to again hibernate during the summer.

But I have resurfaced at FanHouse to cover the NBA. I'm looking forward to the experience, and hearing from readers at tomasson@fanhouse.com. But you can't write "Cancel my subscription!'' since it's free to read me here.