Yes, Timberwolves land new play-by-play announcer from Yes Network

The Minnesota Timberwolves have been a rather busy organization this year. While most NBA teams are content to restock the player roster, these Minnesota Timberwolves held a far more ambitious plan for the organization. The team is transitioning to a new ownership group. As a result, the plan was to hire and reorganize the team’s front office, be aggressive in the offseason to upgrade the team’s roster, and one more thing . . .

Find a replacement for longtime announcer Dave Benz, whose career of 10 years calling the basketball games for the Minnesota Timberwolves ended this year as his contract expired and the team failed to renew it.

The Timberwolves had conducted an extensive search, and have finally made their announcement for the new play-by-play announcer by the name of Michael Grady. Now the question is, who is he?

Well, you will be glad to discover that he is a trusted basketball announcer from the Yes Network, and has spent the last five seasons covering the Brooklyn Nets. In his role with the Yes Network, he served as a courtside reporter who created pre-game, post-game, and halftime feature segments, and spotted in for approximately 10-12 play-by-play announcing of games as needed.

To get a flavor of what Michael Grady brings to the Minnesota Timberwolves play-calling duties, here is a YouTube video interview of Michael Grady on the NBA Exchange video podcast, from June 7, 2021. The segment featuring Grady begins at 4:25 of the video.

Grady is a solid hire. He is a solid play-caller, whose spirited enthusiasm in coverage reflects the mood of the fans in the game. He has a great demeanor and a positive energy flow that is exciting to listen to.

He is not just a rose-colored glasses homer but sprinkles the enthusiasm as long as objective assessments that describe exactly what is going on in play on the basketball court.  Here he is again from an October 5, 2021 video podcast, where he talks at length about the Brooklyn Nets offseason (segment begins at the 3:22 mark)

Grady comes prepared, does his homework, delivers meaningful insight, and is versatile enough to deliver football and basketball coverage for both the Yes Network and the CBS Sports Network. How good is he?

I believe that you will enjoy his enthusiasm, his outlook, and his ability to maintain a 360 perspective during the coverage. As a play-calling announcer, Michael Grady is never at a loss for words and has a great manner of channeling the energy of the game pace.

I believe the announcement will be well received. This is a solid hire, and I expect that you will appreciate this hire as soon as you get a game or two behind you.