Awesome Sixers Color Commentator Leaves for Hawks

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Malik Rose, who had been the color commentator for Sixers broadcasts on Comcast SportsNet the last four seasons, has left the gig for a front office job with the Atlanta Hawks.

Rose, a Philadelphia native who played for Overbrook High School and Drexel, played 12 seasons in the NBA. He was on the last Drexel team to qualify for the NCAA tournament and won two NBA Championships with the San Antonio Spurs. With the Hawks, he’ll work with coach/president Mike Budenholzer, who was an assistant in San Antonio when Rose was with the team.

Over the last four years, Rose has developed into one of the finest color commentators for any of the local teams. He’s been great for broadcasts as the team attempts its expansive tank-and-rebuild strategy: He gets excited about young players, and he is as exasperated as any Sixers fan when things go wrong.

Take this broadcast from March of last year. The Sixers were about to lose their 18th straight, but they could get the fans free Big Macs if they just scored one more bucket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0tYFhECkIU

Rose first calls for the team to foul pointlessly just so they can attempt to get a shot at the promotion. Then he (along with the fans in the crowd) looks around in vain for a foul after Tony Wroten trips with a chance to hit the century mark. That Rose came after Eric Snow, an announcer who literally struggled to stay awake on air, made him even more likable.

Rose was offered an assistant coaching position with the University of Alabama by Avery Johnson earlier this summer, but turned down the gig. His title with the Hawks will be manager of basketball operations. He told the Spurs’ team website last month he hoped to be in an NBA front office one day. He ended up getting that wish pretty quickly.