I won’t even bother pretending. I was pulling hard for Matt Dery to land the coveted seat as heir to Joe Tait. Whenever you have a dog in the fight, you can’t help but be disappointed when it doesn’t go your way. With that disclosure out of the way…

The Cleveland Cavaliers today announced their new radio broadcast team. John Michael has been selected as the team’s new play-by-play announcer, Jim Chones will join the broadcasts as the game color analyst and Mike Snyder will return as the studio host anchoring pre-game, halftime and post-game shows, as well as serving as host of the weekly Coach Byron Scott Show. All Cavaliers games are broadcast on the team’s flagship station News Radio WTAM 1100 AM, Akron’s AM 1590 WAKR and across the Cavaliers Radio Network.

And the only thing left is to wait and see.  I haven’t really heard John Michael before, so I don’t really want to pass judgement on his abilities or whether or not this is a good hire.  It is nice to see the Cavs take this opportunity to go with the two-man booth.  It will also be interesting to see if they decide to retain Joe Tait’s home perch up away from the court or whether they move down to court-side like what typical play-by-play teams do.  For now, John Michael is saying all the right things.

“I am absolutely thrilled to be back in Cleveland, while also being humbled to be selected for this tremendous opportunity. I will work extremely hard to help carry on the tradition of radio excellence with the Cavaliers. Of course, Joe Tait can never be replaced or replicated. He’s a Hall of Famer that many of us in the broadcasting community will always consider the best that ever was,” said Michael. “With that in mind, our focus as a new broadcast team will simply be to do everything we possibly can to enhance our fans’ enjoyment of the game. Our fans will always be the focus of what we are doing and why we’re doing it.”

Now, will there be anything to announce?  If so, when?