He's awful. Although if you want a guaranteed win on the punt, bet the opposite of what he tips every single time. Don't think he's got a single one right.

He goes too far when he is accusing players of 'taking money' from x club.

I'll take him over Dwayne Russell any day of the week, TBH.

That pairing is truly awful.

The most annoying thing is that every time I say something negative about him on Twitter he likes and retweets it. It's like he's still in 'pro wrestling heel' mode, which worked brilliantly when he was playing but as a commentator is horrible.

It's not that he's doing it, it's what it says about his mindset.

He's entertaining, but he's also rubbish.

Says a lot of stupid things, and absolutely he 'bashes' players way too much to the point where he is blatantly insulting them and their club. His blatant hatred for Perth is obsessive. Hate them or not, they are still the back to back champions and deserve at least the smallest amount of respect.

Despite that, he is engaging and his banter especially with Redhage is very entertaining. He has some good points. I don't hate him as much as I started off, but he still grates me a lot of the time. Particularly with his obvious statements and his "listen to me" rants...

Otherwise, he's pretty good sometimes :)

He's just doing what he can to get along, never really got paid as much as he thought he would, or what he though he was worth, most just got paid a little more than what he was worth ( which is why not a lot of contract extensions/repeats) - jad a cerrer that did not go as long or as financially successful as he expected, so now he's left with making some money through commentating, as he's not got enough nous to be a coach.

Sa fostering a three way between his mouth, his brain and reality is not going to get him to stand out, as too many other commentators are more gifted in two out of three of those, so he is left with mouth, ( speed and volume) So its got to do 250% of the work- to make up for the lack of critical thinking and actual knowledge of the game and the NBL specifically, just a retired mid range pro-basketball player trying to live from paycheck to paycheck,

He Sucks but so does that guy doing the walk along interview on Aussie Hoopla .

Someone put a loud, dumb person on tv and sat back to see how it turns out.

Corey's been likened to Skip Bayless/Stephen A. before on Hoops. The difference is these two don't commentate games, aren't paid league ambassadors, and obviously make controversial statements for ratings. Homocide is just an idiot who has a platform to speak his mind.

"He's a bit like LaVar Ball. Everyone thinks LaVar is stupid but he's actually really smart"

Homocide is not low-key intelligent - of that I think we can all be certain. While I agree with your assessment of Lavar Ball, I don't like listening to him either!

"He has some good points."

When?

The difference is these two don't commentate games, aren't paid league ambassadors, and obviously make controversial statements for ratings. Homocide is just an idiot who has a platform to speak his mind.

Ok ok he has no good points that I can specifically think of so I dont know why I wrote that!

However he has been more entertaining in recent calls and his chemistry with Redhage is fun to listen to. Maybe Im just getting used to him, or maybe Ive conceded and accepted his style. Theres lots to not like still.

His pre game tips where he always gets it wrong? He's either trolling for controversy or he actually has no clue. I cant decide.

I imagine he's throwing an 'out there' tip so he can dismiss it amongst all his other bluster if he's wrong, or crow about it endlessly if he's right.

Stuff like 'everyone on Melbourne should be fired' is trolling for a reaction. I have no idea what's behind "if Sydney go 9-5 the rest of the way I'll keep the whole team", especially since they won't and he's been super-keen to fire pretty much everyone all season.

"The one thing more painful than Homicide's act is the people here who call him Homocide. Are those people
A) morons
B) homophobes"

So I take it you believe Homocide is the killing of homosexuals?

That was almost coherent. Well done!

The fact that this thread exists proves that Homicides plan is working.

Right, and the refs are brilliant and Sydney's executed their plan perfectly.

Koberulz, no matter how much you dislike homicide, and no matter how strongly you feel about your reasoning, you are not winning this battle.

Suck it up champ.

He is an illiterate joke!

You just hate him because you aint him.

Homicide's OK

Good in small doses, can grate after a while, but generally gives you something to think about. I actually like him and Redhage together, Redhage is a bit boring and cerebral and Homicide just talks a lot of crap so it's a good little balance.

There needs to be a character doing his job and he is that. If not him who else?

Love him!!! He says what most people are thinking at home...Its good he gets on players that aren't performing...Thats not bashing players, thats just facts they aren't performing...Like someone said in the earlier comments, go watch cricket!

Ive enjoyed his commentary from the beginning. He provides some personality among some otherwise boring commentators. He can ramble on too long sometimes and get a bit annoying when hes trying to get his point across. But my impression of him is that hes intentionally provocative with the discussions he creates and enjoys being the adversary.

Having a commentator ask a coach in a pregame interview if he'd sack his import point guard if he didn't play well in that game is an embarrassment and plain trolling. But that seems to be the way the NBL wants to promote itself this year - controversy for the sake of it.

Swearing during calls, being plain wrong about nearly everything, asking ridiculous questions in interviews - none of that is entertaining, it's bush league.

Yes he shouldn't be doing any interviews thats for certain

I don't want the commentators to be entertaining, I want the basketball to be entertaining.

A few other things that grate me:

his latest "top 5". does anyone actually care who that is? Hes not exactly an expert in anything so why should we care or take note? He goes on and on about it. This gets boring.

The general talk about fantasy nbl (all commentators are guilty of this). For viewers that dont play fantasy, why the hell should they care about it! Its blatant over promotion for something that doesnt need to be promoted too much.

Yes Homicide gets many things wrong and its probably deliberate to create discussion (which works). However he could tone down the stupidity at times to make it look like he knows some things. And then his banter would be worth listening to and the commentary improved.

Facts!!!! People are talking about it so thats all the league wants good or bad. Just like Gaze should get the flick!!! Protected species....

Agree with anon above - don't like it, contact the NBL. Does he go overboard sometimes (often)? Yes. Is it entertaining? Sometimes. Is it grating? Sometimes. You may hate it, heck, 50% of people might hate it, or maybe it's just all the people @'ing him on Twitter and everyone else loves him? He's definitely doing what the league asks - listen to him talk on the Rucker podcast for what I'd say is a more ... measured look at him off the camera.

I think he works fine in the current commentary team, and meshes well with a couple of the other commentators. I think he's taken a few steps forward this season than the first time he was brought in to commentate.

Wait, are we keeping Homicide because he gets people talking, but we're hating on koberulz because they are, umm, getting people talking?

If you're someone that finds that koberulz's posting on Hoops impacts your enjoyment of reading/posting here, maybe you can appreciate how others might feel about Homicide and the NBL?

As was said, a shock jock with a dedicated show is pretty easy to ignore. Less so in a commentary team in the only broadcast available. It's meant that I watch those particular games with sound muted.

If you don't get his top 5 or see the point in it, but you take the time to talk about it online then you are being worked to perfection.

Koberulz is the ultimate mark.

If you know he's trolling, playing a character, then why do you keep complaining?

I swear to god I am sick of the Homicide hate.

The reason there is so much talk around the league this year is that of the controversial comments he makes. Even if they are sometimes a bit of tangent he is just so much fun. He opens up a conversation between people about the game love him or hate him, he has been great for the NBL as a player and as a commentator.

I mean this guy is an NY streetball legend. He is a former MVP of the NBL. Not many players better than him ever at taking the ball to the rack that has come here.

He needs way more respect from everyone on here. He is basically our Amin El Hassan for the NBL. Redhage and Corey Fly also Corey and Tommy Greer Fly.

The guys on the Long and Short podcast totally suck for calling him out publicly. Greg Vanderjagt is a nobody compared to Homicide. Once he has achieved what Corey has in his career he can talk crap.

Koberulz, you are being worked.

Heat is heat.

Reviews are good? What reviews? How is his banter getting more people involved? That's just rubbish.

The league is clearly pushing this "controversy sells" line through both social media and its Fox commentary. They're going to learn pretty quickly that it won't if it's contrived rubbish - which is what this is.

Just call the damn game, surely it's not that hard. Stop trying to "ask the questions no one else will" or "keep it real" or whatever the hell it is he's trying to do.

Let's start a love for homicide thread.

Love the guy. He knows his ball! He nearly made the NBA unlike all the haters here!

He'll do until we can get Derek Rucker back.

Love Hammer and his calls, I think he does a terrific job and James Harvey doesn't get nearly enough games but those two are way above the other commentators.

I'm really getting to hate listening to Tommy Greer be all fanboy over United, I just hope that when we get another Melbourne side that his biased comments are a thing of the past... or balance out the commentators so you've got two biased commentators together.

I think that commentators with affiliations with a few teams like Hammer, Harvey and Trigger are better at delivering unbiased feeling calls than say Greer or Rosen or Redhage.

I'm just glad we don't have Maher or Sapwell commentating Adelaide games anymore, they were a nightmare to listen to

I don't hear him often - thankfully - but when I do he is immensely annoying, mainly because he is obviously more interested in his meaningless 'top 5' rubbish than the game, which he frequently ignores to talk his tripe.

It's telling when his com-commentators just smile and shake their heads and don't respond.

I know this because the director [if that's the right title] who is controlling what we get to see, pulls the camera away from the game to show us just that.

Respect for the game, or the viewers, anyone?

I only see this on fta. If I was paying for it I'd be furious, while recognising that I am/would be powerless, other than to cancel my subscription.

Give the guy his own show like KG's Area 21....bring in former players for opinion pieces....would be fun to watch.....in a lot of ways would prefer that to his commentating games but in his current roll he is certainly generating a lot of talk which can only be good.

There's a period after every ellipsis.

A talk show, or interview show, or panel show, or really anything that gets him away from the games would be much better. Not only would the format suit him more, those who enjoy his work could seek him out while those who don't could ignore his existence completely without missing a minute of basketball.

Sadly, as others have pointed out the NBL is clearly behind him and pushing this under the impression it's a good thing. But is anyone tuning in because of Homicide? I don't think his sphere of influence reaches outside those who would tune in anyway. I also don't recall seeing anyone ever say anything good about his commentary that wasn't in response to criticism.

The Melbourne trio is absolutely terrible, and probably the biggest reason for their high attendances. Homicide doesn't have a clue and makes ridiculous and outrageous statements, Greer is thoroughly biased towards Melbourne, and Russell makes them both look pretty good by comparison.

Was looking forward to watching today's game. Just sat down to do that and Williams was on. Guess I'll watch something else.

I wasn't going to watch it but specifically recorded it when I heard Homicide was going to be on

I find it too hard to watch games on mute. Score and clock graphics tend to be more accurate coming out of NZ than anywhere else, but it's still difficult to follow at times.

In this particular case I also would have been watching while eating dinner, and muting makes it impossible to glance away from the screen at all, so that wasn't going to work.

No, but you have the crowd, the PA announcer, the scoreboard, and the ability to look wherever you want to. TV's issues with incorrect score graphics and not bothering to point the camera at the game while it's going on are bad enough without exacerbating that by removing any other means of understanding what's going on.

If you'd told me a year ago that there was anything that could make me stop following the NBL I'd have laughed at you. And yet here I am, barely watching any games anymore.

This is the NBL's marketing strategy.

I just don't get it.
It's one thing to have somebody who is outrageously opinionated and creates conversation, but this guy is just plain clueless.
Sometimes he manages to create a bit of controversy, almost by accident, but its only because his opinions are nonsense.
Somebody who gets things so completely wrong isn't controversial, just an annoying idiot.

Haha, what? Since when does the scoreboard not give you an indication of what is going on in the game when its sole purpose it to tell you what the score is??

Kobe is right, it's hard to follow a game on TV with the sound on mute. A commentator's role SHOULD be to give you the information you need to properly follow what's happening not just play by play but overall. A lot of the time with Homicide (and other NBL announcers to be fair) that just doesn't happen.

They're actually paying him to commentate. He's not a circus clown, although he acts like it.

I agree 100% with kobe on this and so do a lot of people - the coverage would be a lot better without Homicide.

What publicity is Homicide creating? Is anyone aware of him that wasn't watching the games already? My viewing has halved because of him.

They're actually paying him to commentate.

Sorry, you're correct. I should have said they should be paying him to commentate.

Homicide isn't creating one iota of publicity for the NBL. Zilch. There wouldn't be a single person outside of basketball circles who would even know who he is.

Kobe Ruiz needs to retire like Kobe. Find something else to complain about champ

Most likely Casey Frank is worse than Williams...

"I TOLD YOU [Randle would eventually make some plays]! I TOLD YOU!"

No shit Corey.

He really does need to give up the "I TOLD YOU!" rants. He's a commentator, its his job to tell us (despite it being blatently obvious). Just dont be an obnoxious dick about it. Sounds very unprofessional.

I think I'm starting to understand the way Homicide makes you folks feel now - I'm guessing it's how I feel when I read the same posts about him in every game thread that he commentates on.

I mean, I get it, I really do - I don't hate him, and I completely understand why other folks don't like him, but I'm just sick of reading about it here to be honest. He's doing what the league wants him to do, so I'd suggest emailing the league about it rather than venting here.

He works at least two games every week, whereas other commentators stick to specific venues for the most part. Even when he's not there he gets talked about. The TV product revolves around him.

The NBL are completely convinced this is a good thing, somehow.

Agree AngusH, yes there is a lot of hate towards him, and I agree that its pointless venting on here about him after every game. But I also agree with Koberulz in that he seems to get a lot of games in all venues now. Most other commentators stay in their own regions or don't get as many games. So in all fairness, viewers have every right to call him out all the time given the amount of games he calls. His influence on the product is dominating.

I understand his role with the NBL as the leagues professional antagoniser and the league seems to love what he does, but his target demographic is certainly not me, and I'd predict that I'm in the age group where there would be the most fans watching on TV.

^ Most people seem to be complaining about him though. And I haven't really noticed him promote the NBL outside of NBL broadcasts so its not like non followers of the NBL even knows about him.

Without even meaning to I've seen Homicide on various random "sports panel" type shows talking about the NBL. Again, not saying it's a good move by the NBL, but he's definitely out there talking about the league outside of just the game broadcasts.

Whichis what he sshould be doing. Give him a panel show, put him on other panel shows. Keep him off commentary.

The people who complain about him are ppl on this forum who are bball diehards who will watch no matter who commentates, so that's not really the NBLs concern.

The general sports fans who listen to him on regular radio segments and doing promos like that he's different, and to them he represents the typical "American Basketballer" who's there praising the NBL, that's what's important, the casual new fans and parents.

Homicide knows how to play his role. He's getting people fired up all over the place. I like his style

He'd definitely be much better on a panel show - be it NBL or sports show panel. He's fine there and he can be as moronic and controversial as much as he wants. To be honest, I've never seen him on any panel, but if he has been promoting the NBL in that setting, then that's good.

The complaints I've seen are mostly on Facebook, but there's plenty here too. And even though you want to get new fans on board, I think pissing off current fans isn't a great idea either. Still, there are commentators that I rate worse, so its not all bad. I don't hate the guy.

From the NBL's point of view, I completely get what he's all about. It's fine. I just pretty much disagree with most of it.

Having said that though, at best he is at least entertaining and gets people talking. At worst, he's a complete idiot who states the obvious, does it in an obnoxious way, and discredits any team that he wants to see lose. Which is Perth most of the time.

If you watch him on the panel shows, or listen to him on Rucker's podcast (which is well worth a listen in any case), it's pretty clear he's playing a character in the commentary box.

His whole anti-Perth thing however is great IMO - especially when he's on with Redhage, which is probably why that's one of my favourite pairings in the commentary box, even though I don't rate either of them individually.

If you watch him on the panel shows, or listen to him on Rucker's podcast (which is well worth a listen in any case), it's pretty clear he's playing a character in the commentary box.

Kobe, ever thought that he just gets excited on game day? Walks into a stadium and gets that buzz?

I think everything he does is pretty authentic

He's outright stated he's playing a character.

Where/when did he say that?

I remember reading a Q&A the Cairns Post did on him a couple weeks ago and he said he's just being himself

There was a news article earlier in the year.

Link?

Manu, now that he's retired Homicide is a player agent so it would be fair to assume given all the complexities of that profession that the guy is at the very least of average intelligence if not above average behind the scenes.

It's as clear as day he's playing a character akin to WWE wrestlers. I can tolerate him a bit more than Koberulz can but like him think it's a bit insulting turning pro basketball games into silly sports theatre guff like wrestling.

Clearly it's a directive from LK for Homicide to 'juice up' the coverage in the hope that the controversy he may generate will draw more fans to the game even at the expense of existing NBL fans.

LK isn't involved in the NBL for the fun of pissing away millions of dollars it's with the intent to grow the league into something much bigger that would perhaps one day see a return on his investment.

Zodiac, I quickly learned that while someone may be a full-time Professional, it doesn't inherently mean they have a brain. But I get your point.

I look at the way he was when playing here and don't see much of a difference to how he acts now.

He probably says a few too many "I'm telling you"s. I dunno. I'll pay more attention to him next week

He was playing a character back then, too. The difference is a player being that character is a good thing.

When recently they flew Homicide over to do a game in NZ his persona during that broadcast was toned down so much to the point of almost forgetting he was there in the commentary box.

It was night & day compared to the games here where he carries on like a pork chop.

How do we know though, has he said all this? Was there some kind of interview about him?

Genuinely interested, so if KB/anyone can link me some material they've come across that'd be great.

Whether it's genuine or not, it's entertaining

He had moments, Zodiac. That was the game where he had words with Shorter. Where the Shorter beef kind of started

But he was mixing with a whole new group of colleagues, so he would naturally be more timid and less talkative. I do distinctly remember he was more quiet than usual but from memory picked up the hype level as the game went on

Homicide joined Shane Heal on The Ruckus (Derek Rucker's, excellent IMO) Podcast this week, for a 90 minute NBL discussion. I thought he was good value, too.

The Ruckus Podcast Ep 16 - Shane Heal & Corey 'Homicide' Williams

Homicide's first two reactions to last night's brawl: "this is the greatest thing ever!" and "how can I make this about me?"

The entire atmosphere of the call was horribly inappropriate, and I'm sure would've been significantly better had Homicide not been a part of it.