And he can't pronounce Kurt Warner...

As I settled down to enjoy a rare evening of American sport being broadcast at a reasonable hour, I found myself slightly shocked.

Firstly, Mark Webster, for a man anchoring the biggest event in British basketball this millennium, looked much akin to a man dragged through a bush. Backwards.

Now, as a proud sporter of poorly contrived facial fuzz on many occasions I sympathise. But honestly, when your beard is that grey, that patchy, that generally shambolic and national TV is involved, really, its time to break out Mr Razor...

Still reeling from the shocking state of anchorage, we turned to the pundits, perched, as they stylishly were, on kitchen stools behind a festival security barrier... "Ah-ha" I foolishly thought, "surely the colour commentary will offer us some balance!"

First up was the deliciously alliterative Andre Allyne, who is so important that THIS wonderfully crafted web-page is the only piece of useful information Google threw up on him. I believe he is probably the coach of the London Towers, but who knows.

Andre was not alone however and perched precariously next to him was none other than DJ Jazzy Jeff! He looks much the same as the last time we all saw him, albeit minus his one time "home-boy".

Now in fairness to both these men the analysis was decent enough, and the chit-chat fairly enjoyable, but what gets me is... why them!?

With Jeff, I wonder why, asides from a tendency to "boom shake shake shake the room" in the Summertime, and being a big 76ers fan, why on earth should we pay any attention to his opinion? He didn't even get thrown out of a mansion by James Avery. Not once.

And as for Andre, a man without even a Wikipedia page to his name, is he really the only British basketball personality who was free? There are not one, but two British-born active NBA players tearing up the court at the moment, and yet they were hardly even mentioned! And while they are probably busy with pre-season, surely John Amaechi could take some time out from being hated by Tim Hardaway to give a night of his broadcasting skills?

Truth be told, it was a decent game and a good showcase for the sport but in my opinion, five seriously lacked the balls to get behind the event.

No studio, no personalities, broadcasting on fiveUS when there was nothing but the usual garbage on the big channel is just lame. Hella-lame in fact. Combine the general lack of substance with the fact that the on-screen scoreboard kept appearing and disappearing at random and that points were added to teams totals apparently whenever the chap operating it came back from his fag break, it was a shambles.

The error was compounded by cringeworthy "chance" interviews with celebrities who wanted to watch the game not be harassed ("Oh look! Its Didier Drogba... and Lewis Hamilton.. and Nigel Reo-Coker... and Rio's rubbish little brother... and that cunt from Blue..."). Really, was this the best they could do? Or was it just that they really wanted to pull in the young black male audience by saying "oh look your heroes think this is cool... so should you"?

Either way, what a missed opportunity for Channel 5 to show that they aren't just the joke commercial station that's gone and stolen Neighbours, and what a relief that Sky have got the NFL and are doing a stellar job of promoting it. Now that's what I'm talking about.