I liked Chick Hearn. I listened to him broadcast the Laker games beginning when West and Baylor were playing. And I continued to listen to him until his untimely death. I thought he was a truly gifted broadcaster.
But one of the many “sayings” he used to use was, “He blew the cripple!”. He said this when a player missed an easy lay up. (You guys remember this?) Anyway, was he saying that the shot was so easy that a “crippled” person could have made it?
I don’t think I heard him use this saying during the later years of his Laker broadcasts, but I am sure he did use this for many years. Maybe times were different then, but it sure sounds rather hurtful to a disabled person.
(How about when he said, “Fall back baby, fall back” when Hot Rod Hundley used to make a shot. And who can forget, “Slam Dunk, Camberlain!”.)
In pool, a “cripple” is a ball that is sitting right on the edge of a pocket. Those are balls that are very easily sunk, so I would guess the Hearn was just extending the term to basketball. So it isn’t that even a cripple could make that shot, it was that the shot was so easy it was like a cripple in pool.
“Nah, that’s just ice cream.”
I’ve been a Laker fan for as long as the OP. I really miss Chick.
I am given to understand that it is an extension of the phrase (Shooting) a sitting duck. A duck that is not flying, but is sitting in the water is easy to shoot. Shooting a crippled duck is even easier.
I am not sure where I heard that explanation or even if I made it up (not impossible), but that is how I have always thought of it.
God I loved Chick. I have so many memories of being in the car with my dad, listening to the simulcast of the Lakers game on the radio when I was a kid (didn’t Chick pretty much invent the simulcast?). I was listening to Chick Hearn for years before I actually watched a game. I liked the version I “saw” listening to Chick better. 
“The Jello’s jiggling…”
Not the complete Chick-ism here, but I find myself muttering it frequently: “No harm, no foul. No blood, no ambulance. No cute nurses.”
How about a Jack Chick Hearn Tract?
Would that be funny?
I think he should have kept those comments out of the broadcast. Just because these players make a lot of money doesn’t mean that they don’t have the right to keep their sexual habits private.
The picture that comes into my mind is kind of ugly.
Like when a player is described as having really good speed. I wonder where they get it and how much it is.