I did hear about that, and I guess maybe this is 2K's solution. They had plenty of time to find an alternate to record similar lines of audio though. Tim Roye would have been excellent. I'd even take Bob Fitzgerald, who's worked with 2K before in the NFL games whose presentation is so lauded.
What's Ernie and Shaq doing anyway in the game? I'm pretty sure it's as skippable as anything else, especially if they're not actually doing their real job.
A post game show with them would have made things up a little bit.