The important news for me, ADB and all Rockets and Vipers fans in the Valley, though, was at the end of the release:
Rockets radio play-by-play announcer
Ackerman will be entering his third season with the Rockets. He's very entertaining and good at what he does. Blank's solid as well. He took over in December for my namesake, the original Doctor Professor, Adam Wexler, who now has a sports talk show on a rival station in Houston.
These are the guys Alex and I model ourselves after. We try to do our broadcasts the same way they do, which is a big part of why we introduced the studio host position this year for road games (instead of just doing color commentary for home games), which really gave me a chance to expand my role, something I have relished.
I think this is something that might be sometimes overlooked but really underscores the strength and closeness of the relationship between the Vipers and the Rockets. Everyone always talks about how the idea of the hybrid is to follow the baseball model and how that's the ultimate goal for the NBA Development League. Well, that's great, but I don't think AAA baseball teams have the kind of relationship with MLB teams that we have with with our parent club. Are we an exception to the rule? Possibly, for now anyway. However, I know we turned a lot of heads on both sides this year. NBA teams want to expand their brands to other markets (read: NBADL markets). NBADL teams want to show how strong their backing is from the NBA.
Well, if fans can listen to Rockets games in the Rio Grande Valley, and then they can spin the dial and hear Vipers games, and they sound the same, that just adds to the legitimacy and the seriousness of what the Vipers are doing here. After all, if you're going to do something, do it right.
I look forward to seeing Craig down here in October and to listening to him and Joel on nights we don't have games.
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