FanHouse Craig Sager

Another day, another NBA Twitter story. This time, it's not a story about a player on Twitter, but the league and its broadcast partners utilizing Twitter to promote this year's NBA playoffs. According to a report on Mashable.com on Wednesday, Turner Sports (TNT and NBA TV) plans to have its team of commentators start tweeting throughout the playoffs.

I know what you're thinking ... Charles Barkley on Twitter. Well, not quite. Kenny Smith, Craig Sager and Ernie Johnson will all be tweeting, but there's no mention of the the Chuckster on the list of Turner personalities getting Twitter accounts. Turrable!

If you're old school, it's pretty easy: NBA players shouldn't be texting or twittering or making calls or going on-line during halftime.

Then again, if you're old school, you think the in-game interviews with head coaches are gratuitous, the pre-halftime and postgame interviews with players offer little to nothing, the live miking of coaches is intrusive and the mere notion of cameras in the locker room at halftime is an affront.

There's no doubt that Milwaukee's Charlie Villanueva and Phoenix's Shaquille O'Neal twittering during halftime took in-game access to another level. But we should have seen it coming.

I'm a frequent abuser of hyperbole, but I think I can legitimately qualify Dan Steinberg's interview with Craig Sager, posted this morning at the Bog, as the best thing the internet will see this month. I would go with "today" but that's just obvious and I don't want to insult Dan and I'd go "4eva" but the internet is a fickle beast. Much like Craig Sager.

There's so much to choose from that I'm tempted to blockquote the entire thing -- he talks about being a college mascot, trampoline dunking, Hooters, hot blondes, his incredibly hot and young wife, getting hammered -- but the following exchange, re: Sager's thong, probably sums it up the best. (Yes, I meant to type "Sager's thong"; they're discussing how hard it is for him to simplify his wardrobe in Beijing).

There's no way to accent it at all?

The only thing I can do is have this [belt] and have a matching thong. That's about the only thing I can do.

Do you have a matching thong? [laughing]

Yeah! I'm not going to show it to you though.

You really do? [staring]

Yeah, but I'm not going to show it to you.

Yes, the actual interview is just as amazing as the title would indicate. And maybe it's just me feeling a little wonked out from eight consecutive quarters of live blogging, but every time I watch this, I still expect either Craiggers to just rip his mask off (as Kenny suggests), or for Sager to drop his real name followed by Hugo strangling Mr. Dresscode to death with his cartoony mascot hands. At least I can dream.



It's probably worth noting that somehow, Hugo is better dressed than Craig. Not shocking, just worth noting.

I have no idea how I missed this last night (because I certainly caught the part about Steve Nash telling Craig Sager about his sweet-a Nike Trash Talk shoes), but right before that happened, Nash grabbed Sager's not-so-sweet-a pocket square and used it to blow his nose. This might be the highlight of the weekend, folks.



Big ups to Fan IQ for finding it.