A few hours before the big Saturday evening, during which George Karl, Tim Hardaway or even Manu Ginobili will join the basketball pantheon, Walt Frazier will mark the history of the orange ball in his own way.
The former conductor of the Knicks, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987 as a player, will indeed once again be honored by the basketball pantheon. This time it will be as a media personality, as ‘Clyde’ won a ‘Curt Gowdy Award’, named after American sports commentator legend Curtis Gowdy, which annually rewards several people connected to the media world, for the television and for the press.
Among the famous winners of this “Curt Gowdy Award”, there are in particular the journalists Sam Smith and Marc Stein in 2012 and 2019, for their respective contributions in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times, but also Doris Burke in 2018, for his immense career commentating on NBA games, on ABC and ESPN.
” What made Walt special as a player was his creativity on the court. On the mic, it’s the same thing” said Gus Johnson, a former colleague of Walt Frazier on commentary at Knicks games. ” He became a poet at the microphone, I still use some of his most mythical phrases. Despite the many years of losing, he made the experience great.“
Words that corroborate those of Mike Breen, winner of the “Curt Gowdy Award” in 2020, current colleague of Walt Frazier with whom he has formed a legendary duo since 1999, to the comments of the Knicks matches.
” When Walt was a gamer, he earned his place in the Hall of Fame because he worked hard. It’s the same as a commentator. He doesn’t just improvise. He makes it fun to watch a Knicks game. And besides, I don’t know anyone who can come up with such sentences, with all the rhymes. […] I think he’s better than he’s ever been right now. It’s more than his vocabulary he concluded.
