"This entire exercise exists to bring you the 20 least interesting things they pick up."

Intrepid L.A. Times NBA columnist Mark Heisler pens a fun look at the league's mike-the-participants idea and I couldn't help but think that golf is the one sport that would stand to benefit from such an idea, assuming that the sanitizing wasn't excessive. Because as Heisler notes, we never hear the good stuff and therefore, these exercises are not translating into increased viewership numbers.

With all this interactivity, everyone's ratings continue to decline, even the NFL, which this season had the five lowest-rated Monday night games ever.

Despite the new insights from its managers, Major League Baseball just saw the World Series post its three lowest ratings ever in consecutive seasons.

Now for the exciting debut of babbling coaches with the Denver Nuggets in Dallas!

Denver Coach George Karl:

"OK, Marcus Camby, get in the game, babe!"

Johnson:

"Way to go, Stack!"

That would be Jerry Stackhouse. Talk about participating in the experience! Then there was Karl's memorable interview on the bench, in which he concluded: "I really think the key to our team is passing the ball."

It may be the key to his team, which doesn't pass the ball much after it's inbounded. Everyone else already knew it was good to move the ball.

Not that it was a total waste of time. In that night's second game, Portland's Brandon Roy told the sidelined Greg Oden that Miami's Shaquille O'Neal said to tell him, "You're lucky you're sitting out tonight."

In the high point, Utah Coach Jerry Sloan was caught telling his team there were "four @#$%^&! minutes" left during Wednesday's loss in Phoenix.

Unfortunately, this was a mistake on the part of someone at ESPN, who may not be at ESPN anymore.

If ESPN and TNT actually showed the interesting stuff, it would be great. But as NBA partners, their first obligation is to see that nothing too interesting goes out over the air.