SI

Mike Breen Set to Hit Major Milestone, but Don’t Call Him ‘Voice of the NBA’

Also in Traina Thoughts: ‘Winning Time’ Season 2 trailer; must-see postgame interview; fantastic jersey news; and more.

Jimmy Traina

Please send in any questions you may have for this week's SI Media Mailbag. You can send questions via Twitter or email them to Jimmy.Traina@si.com.

1. Game 5 of the NBA Finals Monday night between the Heat and Nuggets will be significant not just because Denver should clinch a title and the NBA season will come to an end.

It will also be the 100th NBA Finals game called by ESPN/ABC’s Mike Breen. 

The Nuggets-Heat series represents Breen’s 18th NBA finals. By comparison, Marv Albert, who is universally thought of as the all-time greatest NBA play-by-play man, called 13 NBA Finals in his 55-year career.

Milestones are always happening in sports, but it's always nice to see somebody hit one when they are well liked. I can tell you that in all the years I've covered sports and sports media, I have never heard one single person say anything bad about Breen. Ever. The number of people in this business that you can say that about could fit on one hand.

Breen is so humble, he actually took issue with me calling him “the voice of the NBA” when I introduced him on SI Media With Jimmy Traina last month in the most classy way possible.

“Right away, I’m gonna disagree with you,” he said. “I hate the term ‘the voice of the NBA.’ I hate it.”

When I replied that since Breen calls the NBA Finals every year, that makes him the voice of the NBA, he continued to push back.

“If you look at it, say, Boston gets in the Finals, their radio voice, Sean Grande, who is fantastic, he’s the voice of the NBA for the Celtics fans. So every team has their own voice of the NBA.

“Then you have all of our terrific play-by-play people at ESPN, all the terrific play-by-play guys at TNT, so there are a lot of voices for the NBA. I know it sounds trivial, but I’m never comfortable with that because there are so many great voices in the NBA, and that’s who the fans sometimes think is their voice of the NBA.”

2. HBO has released the Season 2 trailer for Winning Time, which covers the Lakers dynasty of the ’80s. The show will return Aug. 6.

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3. Aaron Rodgers had another big New York weekend. He attended an Ed Sheeran concert Saturday and the Tonys on Sunday, which left some people a little confused.

4. Wonderful news here as the Buccaneers have announced that their beautiful creamsicles uniforms will be worn for the team’s Week 6 game against the Lions. The Bucs haven’t worn the creamsicle attire since 2012.

5. This video of Yankees radio play-by-play man, John Sterling, getting hit with a foul ball Saturday is downright scary, but the 84-year-old never missed a pitch and was back behind the mic for Sunday’s game. Impressive.

6. This week’s episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features an interview with Radio Hall of Famer Chris “Mad Dog” Russo.

Russo talks about radio shows vs. podcasts, how radio has changed over the years and how sports talk hosts can no longer just do sports.

He also shares his thoughts on reupping with First Take for another year, how his relationship with JJ Redick has improved over the past few months and Pat McAfee joining ESPN.

Other topics covered with Russo include flex scheduling coming to Thursday Night Football, the NFL putting a playoff game exclusively on Peacock, the problem MLB and the NBA face in this day and age, getting blowback for not liking the WBC, Bruce Springsteen’s latest tour, his son landing a job as an assistant basketball coach at Northern Arizona, why it’s so awful to fly in America and much more.

Following Russo, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we discuss my McAfee interview from last week’s podcast, the Succession series finale and more. I also read all the May reviews left on Apple for the podcast.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I have never listened to the SmartLess podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. However, over the weekend, I binged the six episodes of SmartLess on the Road series on HBO and laughed so hard throughout. This scene in particular got me.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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