Every sports viewer has different coping mechanisms for dealing with their favorite team getting demolished on live television. For Hawks play-by-play broadcaster Bob Rathbun, that method of choice was cynicism.
The peak example of this came towards the end of Monday’s game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks, with Steph Curry on the verge of scoring 50 points. Curry drove towards the paint but stopped right around the free throw line to toss up a floater that went in. The shot brought the Chase Center crowd to its feet as the superstar guard reached the big numerical landmark everyone was waiting for.
Rathbun, however, was not one to be impressed, and was actually rather confused as to why people were going gaga over the performance.
“I mean, OK, he’s got 50. Is it really that big a deal?” Rathbun bemoaned. “I mean you’ve won championships, you’ve been MVP, you’re going to the Hall of Fame, what’s the big deal about getting 48 or 50? I don’t get that.”
Alongside the disgruntled broadcaster was a man who knows a thing or two about putting on a dominant showing in front of a home crowd: Dominique Wilkins. The Human Highlight Reel noted that from a player’s perspective, such accomplishments are, quite frankly, cool and good.
This didn’t change Rathbun’s mind, however, as he remained committed to the Old Man Yells At Cloud routine and pivoted to wondering why a superstar would ever want to score more points in a blowout.
To each their own, but top players doing the stuff that top players are good at usually creates a pretty damn entertaining product on the floor, even if it’s something they’ve done before — nine previous times in Curry’s case.
