I don't know about Parsons. Let's keep Bull, bring in Craig. Dwight can stay on the team for a while. Don't need his or Barkley comedy for a few years. Dwight brings enough laughs and good plays as a Rocket!
I can listen to Craig although sometimes he tries to hard to have a memorable call. Joel Blank on the other hand is horrible. His rhyming shtick is lame and takes away from the recap. I miss our legends on my radio.
I like Craig and Joel both. I just think sometimes Craig steps on Joel too often when Joel tries to give his input, it comes off as pricky to me. But i do like them. They are NOT Jim and Gene though!
Okay, so I have gone back and really listened to games since everyone shared their feedback. I have to say that clearly I was wrong as Craig Ackerman is really solid. His emotion and playcalling is really cool, although sometimes it can be a little bit dry What I now realize is Joel Blank is so bad that he was making the experience unbearable for me. Therefore, I love listening to road games as Joel does not do the sidekick gig, but when they are home and Joel and Craig are talking, Joel is abysmal.
They're improving. A couple years ago, Ackerman was doing color & play by play. It was hard to listen to. They are better now with the few sample games I've heard. Blank gives good contrast to Ackerman. They just need to listen to themselves like Vandermeer & Ware (Texans) and be even better.
I like Craig Ackerman's enthusiasm but he can't keep up with the pace of the game a majority of the time.
I guess Ackerman is okay. He talks really fast, I'll give him that. Does that translate into a well described game? eh. To me, he does too much color commentating. That's not his role. But he's fine I guess. I'm from the championship era and I miss the old guys too. Like me some Bill Worrell too.
What..? Craig and Joel always call a play either good or bad even if it favors the Rockets. They don't do it quite as often on the TV cast though I don't really remember that much cuz I haven't been able to see the TV cast in like 2 seasons. So much hate on Joel though, He's great.
respectfully I'm going to disagree with this. I've had to watch a lot of the nationally televised games on crappy firstrowsports.eu streams (we don't have cable or a dish), and I've taken to cutting the audio on those streams and listening to Craig from my iPhone on the NBA app. I synchronize the play-by-play to wherever the action is on my computer, and it works pretty well--especially when those stupid pop-ups block the screen and I can't see what's going on for 30 seconds. I think he does *extremely* well at keeping up with the pace of the game and accurately describing what's going on. It almost makes the crappy streams bearable. And then I always watch the game the next day on League Pass.
I don't get to listen to much Rocket radio as 790 does not reach the Beaumont area very well but the few times I have heard Ackerman, I can say he does not hold a candle to Gene Peterson and the color guy REALLY sucks compared to Jim Foley. I used to love listening to Peterson and Foley on 740 growing up before I could see most of the games on cable. Ackerman is adequate but not close to Gene "How Sweet It Is" Peterson.
ackerman + bullard would be AMAZING. Ackerman is a blast, I even though I have league pass tend to listen to games, because of Ackermans style. btw http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=249588 how could you not like him?
no joke, sometimes when i'm forced into a horrific away/"neutral" feed, i mute the game and stream Ackerman. He does a great job!
Jason Friedman from Rockets.com and RTV should join him on away games (Not sure how much experience JCF has calling radio but if he does...) and Joel stick with him on color for home.
I love Ackerman. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lTeZ6elLcow" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>)
