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The biggest change for the Sixers thus far, at least the one with the most immediate impact, has very little to do with the new ownership group. While team itself remains largely unchanged (save for the jettisoning of Mo Speights, who seemed like a genuine jackass), everything surrounding the action on the hardwood is different. Adam Aron is determined to have intercourse with all five of your senses. He brought in an anthemist from American Idol, a lighting team from Broadway, a PA announcer from AARP, and outsourced mascot design to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, which is based out of New York and Los Angeles*. 

None of that has excited anyone, yet. It’s all window dressing to support what could become (already is?) a great product. But the one change that has made an impact is the addition of Malik Rose to the broadcast team. Rose, who replaces Eric Snow’s pillow, brings his inner “Negrodamus” to spice things up between Marc Zumoff’s damp boxer shorts (yessss, ohhhhh yesssss) and Dei Lynam’s much sexier action figure, Meredith Marakovits… and we couldn’t be happier (with Rose, that is).

*Hearing that the delay in unveiling a new mascot – announcement could come anytime between February and next season – is because the Sixers realized their mistake and may be heading back to the drawing board. Steve Jobs once said that you need to press the “rewind” button every once in a while to get things right. We’d recommend heeding that advice in this case.

Admittedly, I was doing other things while watching most of the Sixers’ five-game road trip, and wasn’t in a place to hear a television during this weekend’s games. But last night I dug in to the broadcast, an action I would imagine Malik describing as move over, couch potato, Kyle’s taking over this sofa, and he’s hot. Hot potato! Baked, with bacon, cheese and chives.

Or something like that.

Anyway, Rose is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that at one point last night Zumoff was forced to apologize to custodians everywhere, because Rose kept referring to Thad Young as The Custodian, cleaning up the glass.

Other highlights, most courtesy of our new hashtag, #shitmaliksays, which was inspired by a Tweet from reader (@zacharydt):

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Fantastic!

With that, we introduce #shitmaliksays, your Twitter hashtag for chronicling the best of Malik Rose. We’ll frequently feature the standouts here on CB, but you can always follow along during Sixers broadcasts on CSN. So, dial in, like a phone bank!

[Related: Highlights from the first night of #shitmaliksays]

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