NBA FanHouse

Ray Allen's Toddler Son Has Diabetes, Not His Teenage Daughter

Matt Watson — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:45:00 EST

Filed under: Celtics, Eastern, NBA Media Watch, Boston, Blogs

When Ray Allen skipped talking to the media and immediately bolted the Staples Center following Game 5, the Celtics explained it was because he had to deal with "a health issue with one of his children," declining to get into specifics out of respect for Allen's family.

Somehow, word eventually "leaked" via sports talk radio that Allen left because his daughter Tierra, a high school freshman, was hospitalized due to diabetes. The blog The Lakers Nation heard the report and posted the news, which in turn helped spread the word around the internet.

As it happens, the report was false -- as Allen clarified yesterday, it was his 17-month old son Walker who was hospitalized due to diabetes, though as you can see in the photo, he's since been released and was able to attend last night's game.

Doc Rivers was upset at the initial false report, though his anger seems to be misguided:

"The problem is, to me - and this is where I get into the blogger thing - people write anything on the Internet and it's read and then it becomes fact when it's not, unfortunately," said Rivers. "Nobody checks. There are no checks and balances and it hurts us all. That's the problem."

Rivers has railed against blogs in the past, but really, shouldn't his anger be directed at talk radio? There's a difference between aggregating information and simply making things up, and while the guys behind The Lakers Nation were mistaken (and have since apologized), so were hundreds of thousands of other listeners who heard the same report. And in hindsight, it's obvious the report wasn't all that off-base -- somewhere along the line, someone simply identified the wrong child. News travels fast in the internet age, and blogs aren't to blame.

Ray Allen's Toddler Son Has Diabetes, Not His Teenage Daughter originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:45:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ESPN Takes the First Step And Admits That There Actually Was a Jemele Hill 'Mistake'

Will Brinson — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Celtics, Lakers, NBA Media Watch, NBA Playoffs, ESPN, Blogs

If blogs did not exist, I guarantee you 99% fewer folks would have read Jemele Hill's Saturday ESPN column, which argued that cheering "for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It's like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan."

Hill's statement -- which ESPN quickly edited out of the article -- can best be classified as incoherent and stupid. Incoherent, because both analogies display a poor understanding of history (anyone who cares know that it doesn't matter who pushes the nuclear button first). Stupid, because jokes about Nazis or nuclear holocausts are usually ill-advised. If you're going to attempt either, it's best to bring your A-game. If you don't have an A-game, just keep your mouth shut.

(B-game writers like Hill can console themselves with the knowledge that society is much more tolerant of folks who make bad jokes about their own heritage. The 'Hitler Rug' above comes from a Jewish Museum. I don't slap my knees when I see it, but I would imagine that members of the Jewish faith have a different take on it than I do.)

ESPN and Hill apologized for the mistake today. That's nice, but I think the time has come to move Hill out of the "thoughtful" category reserved for capable columnists and slot her in the "desperate" category reserved for writers trying to shock people into noticing them.

I say this because Hill seems to enjoy the attention that follows making outrageous statements. That's the only way conceivable that she could have argued that Pistons-Spurs would be a better matchup for the NBA.

Bad columnists fall prey to homerism all the time, and Hill is no exception. But it doesn't take a history degree to figure out that sloppy writing and sensitive issues are a horrible combination. If a columnist can't see that, they're probably not worth your time.

UPDATE: Hill has been suspended.

ESPN Takes the First Step And Admits That There Actually Was a Jemele Hill 'Mistake' originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If Paul Pierce Is Questionable for Game 2, Then So Is Red Auerbach

Brett Pollakoff — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:15:00 EST

Filed under: Celtics, Lakers, NBA Injuries, NBA Playoffs, Blogs

You know how occasionally, someone in the mainstream media gets all angry about something irresponsible that may have been written by a blogger? Well, if those types would read their own blogs -- especially the one about the Celtics which runs on the Boston Globe's website -- they might just find that the level of reporting is far below their self-proclaimed high and mighty standards.

The headline of a post that went up shortly after the game screams, "Pierce's status for Game 2 uncertain." So what's wrong with that? I mean, the guy was carted off the floor on a wheelchair, so it's safe to assume he might not be ready for Game 2, right? Wrong. Because there was almost nothing of substance to back up a headline that would surely send Celtics' fans into cardiac arrest first thing in the morning.

The only thing that's used as supporting evidence for this ridiculous assertion is the following quote from Pierce, which, by the way, is the very last line of the post. Pierce's response to the question of whether or not he'll be ready for Game 2:

"We'll see," he said. "I mean, it's in pain. I was able to get through tonight. I don't know if it was off adrenaline or what, but got through it."

That's it. "We'll see" all of a sudden means, "OMG! Pierce might not play in Game 2?!" Please.

Pierce literally came skipping from the tunnel five minutes after he left with the injury, and scored 10 more points the rest of the game, including back-to-back three-pointers late in the third. But besides the visual evidence of Pierce coming back and playing better-than-fine after the injury, there's the common sense that, with three days until Game 2, he'll have plenty of time for rest and treatment to make sure he's ready to go.

Add in Pierce's toughness and overall will to win, and I think he'd have to have a limb amputated or something to keep him from stepping onto the court in Game 2. Hmm, that sounds intriguing. I think I just gave the Globe's Celtics Blog an idea for their next headline.

If Paul Pierce Is Questionable for Game 2, Then So Is Red Auerbach originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:15:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Buzz Bissinger and Nik Richie Get on Air Together and Somehow Nothing Explodes

Will Brinson — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:30:00 EST

Filed under: Lakers, NBA Media Watch, Blogs

You would think that Buzz Bissinger and Nik Richie (theDirty.com, not pictured) ending up on the same radio program, Bill Littlefield's outstanding Only a Game on NPR, would result in the world's first airwave strangulation. Surprisingly, the short interview went pretty well.

There were only a few seconds of real tension in the interview (about 4:24) when Richie attempted to point out the Dirty's "Gossip Disclaimer" as it related to his accusations of Kobe Bryant's infidelity, and the Bissinger starts to go off and mentions "Leitch" again.

But more to the point, since America is clearly tired of talking about Buzz, what really stood out for me was a disturbing statement that Richie made relating to blogger stereotypes.

I'm not really an investigative journalist. I'm just a blogger.

That is a problematic statement. First of all, again, blogging is a medium. "Being a blogger" does not necessarily force one to be a sarcastic gossip/rumor monger. Nor does it preclude one from actually being an investigative journalist.

Richie can say "my blog doesn't deal with journalism" and I would be fine with that, but to perpetuate the stereotype that bloggers do not care about actually being journalists simply because "they blog" is a silly, outdated copout. It is also the primary reason why -- dying medium aside -- newspaper writers dislike bloggers.

I'm not asking Nik Richie to stop doing what he is doing. Blogs and journalism do not have to go hand in hand. But just don't use the "Hey man, I'm just a blogger!" line. Blogs really aren't -- as Buzz pointed out -- "as counterculture as you think", and embracing the anti-journalism stereotype certainly will not help dissipate the notion that a certain medium lacks standards or reasonable perspectives on sports and society.

Buzz Bissinger and Nik Richie Get on Air Together and Somehow Nothing Explodes originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ESPN Is OK with Laura Lane's Personal Blog, but 'Don't Bother Looking for It, It's Long Gone'

Will Brinson — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:15:00 EST

Filed under: Lakers, Los Angeles, ESPN, Blogs

ESPN the Magazine is taking a decidedly different approach to this whole Laura Lane-Vanessa Bryant potty-mouthed semi-soap opera than some people probably thought they would. The Worldwide Leader is actually embracing Ms. Lane's decision to write about her encounter with Ms. Bryant on her personal blog.

This is a good thing. Corporations tend to freak out when people with any insider knowledge discuss the company. (As a freelancer, Lane's not really an insider. But again, corporations often shoot first and question later in these cases.)

So, credit to the ESPN powers that be who kept their cool here. But the company gets significantly less credit for the vague and somewhat hypocritical manner in which it lays the blame in this instance. The root of the problem: They still don't seem to really understand how blogs work.

First, there's the disappearance of Lane's blog itself. Lane claims that she removed it herself after it received a swell of attention, some of it from within Bristol. On the ESPN post addressing the issue, an anonymous ESPN editor notes that some of that attention came from within the company:

[The story] received extra attention in the halls of Bristol because Laura was (incorrectly) ID'd as an "ESPN reporter" (She's not. She's a freelancer and was at the game as such.)"

Let's start with the basic fact that this is an erroneous statement. If she was at the event with an ESPN press pass or simply under the pretense of reporting for ESPN, she is an "ESPN reporter." The company can give out whatever titles it wants internally, but it can't dictate who's called a reporter and who isn't.

But then the reasoning gets really screwy. Right after emphasizing that "ESPN does allow its writers to maintain their own blogs," the unnamed ESPN editor explains that:

As far as we're concerned, Laura didn't do anything particularly "wrong" other than assume her personal speech would be taken as just that: personal. Sadly, now she knows better.

If you can figure out what that means, help me. Clearly Lane did something wrong (or "wrong"). Does ESPN fault her for not seeing this kerfuffle coming? If it does, it's fair to assume Lane took her bosses' displeasure into her calculations when she took her blog down.

Or, perhaps they are attempting to rid Lane of any blame because the reading public -- and even personal blogs are very much public, folks -- somehow failed to discern the difference between Lane's writing for ESPN and for her own blog. Because, if you recall, they both contain the same subject material.

What's more, the anonymous ESPN editor seems ignorant of the irony of the following timeline: 1) Lane posts the ESPN item based on a candid conversation with Bryant. 2) Bryant reads Lane the riot act about publishing the contents of what Bryant considered a private conversation. 3) Lane writes a glib post about the "awesome" confrontation on her personal blog. 4) Lane doesn't like the attention her "personal speech" is getting, so she takes down the blog entry.

Neither the ESPN editor nor Lane seem to acknowledge that taking down a blog post that makes you look stupid is bad form. If you're a reporter, (and again, she is) it suggests you don't stand by your story. And when it comes to journalism, neither context nor content are excused when your writing moves to a blogspot url.

What Lane does with her own blog and her own reputation is her call. It's more relevant how ESPN decides to approach the issue: And the post's closing statement boils down to: Don't blame us, we're just a dumb blog.

We're sure there's a First Amendment point we could make here but we feel like we're in over our heads as it is. Suffice it to say, we remain big Laura Lane fans here at The Mag.com and we've got her back.

The message is: We're glad to have her back, but she's not a reporter. We want you to know we're OK with blogs, even though this blog disappeared after the suits became unhappy with the coverage it caused.

Since the editors don't seem to get it, here's how I see it: The blogosphere is not a consequence-free environment. When you delete posts that make you look stupid, you lose credibility. And when you try to downplay your mistakes by arguing that people shouldn't take you seriously, people take you up on that suggestion.

Glib posts can be fun, and the blogosphere as much as any medium contains a bevy of sarcasm and snarkiness. But sometimes, particularly when attempting to discuss your own journalistic practices, you need to lay out the issues in a clear and painfully longwinded manner. (See also: this post.)

PS. It's just "Christmas Ape." There's no "The" in his name.

ESPN Is OK with Laura Lane's Personal Blog, but 'Don't Bother Looking for It, It's Long Gone' originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Thu, 29 May 2008 15:15:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NBA Occasionally Censors Gilbert's Blog

Tom Ziller — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:45:00 EST

Filed under: Wizards, Washington, DC, Blogs

No NBA player uses less discretion on his blog than Gilbert Arenas -- Agent Zero sounds off on anything and everything on his official NBA.com blog, ripping fellow players for rejecting big contracts, ripping fellow players for not making their teammates better, talking about suicidal thoughts stemming from his struggle with injury. He's a very honest fellow, and the NBA has been lauded by fans for its rather open policy with regard to Gil.

But not everything is fair game. In a brief interview with the Sacramento Bee, Arenas says the NBA has censored him a few times, and that the league "filters" the entries before they go live.

I did a steroids one, about, "How can you not think (Roger) Clemens is on steroids?" And, "He looks like an Escalade truck." They took that out. They took a Michael Vick thing out. But other than that, whatever goes on, they've already filtered through it.

If the league filters Gil and still lets him get away with some of the stuff he blogs, they deserve more respect than we already give them. They get it.

NBA Occasionally Censors Gilbert's Blog originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:45:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Abusing Anonymous Sources in Sportswriting

Tom Ziller — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Heat, NBA Media Watch, Miami, Blogs

Sports By Brooks makes a fabulous point in a post about the Miami Herald's Barry Jackson this morning. Jackson, you might remember, penned the piece which got Bob Costas's face onto hundreds of basement blogger dartboards earlier this spring. A major part of Jackson's angle: Bloggers and the like aren't accountable, as they often write anonymously.

Brooks points out Jackson's recent usage of anonymous sources cited for the sole reason of bashing Shaquille O'Neal. Here's the relevant passage from Jackson's Sunday column.

Among words used by Heat people to describe Shaquille O'Neal, who lashed out at the team last week: ''a phony,'' a ''big baby'' and unprintable expletives.

Anonymous sources have their place in sportswriting -- trade rumors would be relegated solely to the realm of Sam Smith's imagination without them, and we'd never get contract details (important in this day of luxury tax consciousness) if reporters didn't publish the info without citing the agents who surely leak it.

But using "people" as a descriptor for folks who just want to bash a former player? In this instance, Jackson isn't a reporter -- he's a mouthpiece for some cowardly (but probably honest and completely correct) folks. Columnists stand by their name when they rip players and coaches. When players rip their own, they should be held accountable as well. And in this case, the only person who can hold them accountable is the writer. Don't blame the "sources"; blame Jackson for letting them get away with it.

Abusing Anonymous Sources in Sportswriting originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Tale of Two Blogger Policies

Tom Ziller — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Pacers, Mavericks, NBA Fans, NBA Media Watch, Dallas, Indianapolis, ESPN, Blogs

As you are no doubt well aware of by now, Mark Cuban recently banned bloggers from the Dallas home locker room. ESPN blogger Henry Abbott and Los Angeles Times blogger Andrew Kamenetzky tested the policy Tuesday night. From Abbott's TrueHoop:

I asked the PR staff as soon as I got here if I would be allowed in, so there were no surprises. But as it happened, I had to go through the same door later to talk to a Mavericks staffer. And a security guard took a look at my credential, and said, very nicely, "you know you're banned, right?" ...

I had heard that before the game tonight they had to distribute lists with the names of the bloggers. And this poor dude was the one stuck with the embarrassing task of enforcing this goofy ban.

And as I was small talking to the guy, another staffer -- blogger alert! -- rushed over to ask the security guard if everything was OK.

Let us take a trip to the other end of the spectrum, shall we? Indy Cornrows, a Pacers fan blog written by a dude with a full-time job and two kids, has been invited to repost its game recaps on Pacers.com this season. (Some examples.) Cornrows let the team's web guy know he'd be attending the recent Knicks game. The team gave him a media credential and invited him to (ready?) the locker room for post-game interviews, which Cornrows then uploaded for fans to hear.

This is not the first time Cuban is the NBA's vocal minority, but it may be one of his more egregious misjudgments (Erick Dampier notwithstanding).

A Tale of Two Blogger Policies originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bob Costas Doesn't Hate All of Us, After All

Tom Ziller — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:50:00 EST

Filed under: NBA Media Watch, ESPN, Blogs

Bob Costas, a week after demonizing the state of online sports punditry, called up Deadspin's Will Leitch to clarify. While his efforts to clear the air will be commended (as they should be), I find myself still a bit unsatisfied.

Here is Costas's most clear explanation of his point:

"My commentary was aimed solely at a portion of Internet sports discourse, an unfortunately large portion, that consists of nothing more than potshots, ad hominem arguments, ignorance and invective. ...

I was absolutely not saying that most or all bloggers were losers. It just seems so often that commenters use insults in the place of arguments. ... But forgive me for not placing the exact same value on an comment on a political blog that I would to something said by Ted Koppel."

Sure, we'll all agree a lot of "Internet sports discourse" sucks. But guess what? A lot of television sports discourse sucks. And a lot of radio sports discourse sucks. And, surprising as it may seem to someone raised on the medium, a lot of print sports discourse sucks.

Costas admits his stances can be (at least partly) attributed to "a generational thing." And that'd be OK. But before you go branding a new generation "losers" and "idiots," you should probably understand what you're talking about. Costas, by lumping the wholeness of sports blogs in with lowest-common-denominator commenters on some random newspaper website, clearly does not. We don't lump Costas in with Bret Michaels and Flavor Flav, after all.

Bob Costas Doesn't Hate All of Us, After All originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:50:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is Cuban Schitzo, or Just Full of Himself?

Tom Ziller — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:10:00 EST

Filed under: Mavericks, NBA Fans, NBA Media Watch, Dallas, Blogs

A few days after the dust settled on his decision to ban bloggers from the Mavericks locker room, Mark Cuban again piped up (on his blog) to laugh at all the monkeys raising swords in response to the matter. In the post (on his blog), he insists the term blog has become loaded with visions of low standards and sloppy ineptitude. (Hey, Bob Costas agrees!) He tells newspapers they are making huge mistakes by calling their 'blogs' blogs, and offers a solution.

If I worked for the NY Times, or any other media company with any level of brand equity, I would have done everything possible to define the section of our website that offers ongoing as anything other than a blog. I would make up a name. Call it say.....RealTime Reporting.

RealTime Yankees: Catch in depth, up to the minute reports on the Yankees as only the NY Times world re known staff of Sports Writers can bring up

(All spelling and grammatical errors original. I don't get paid to clean up dude's mess.) Basically, Cuban thinks the world is full of idiots. If you call your blog something else, no one will ever associate it with blogs. And you should do so, because blogs are awful. (Also: If you tell your toddler the Brussels sprouts are in fact "magical giant jelly beans made of special green chocolate," they will eat them. It's true! You should do this, because Brussels sprouts are awful.)

Meanwhile, Mavericks.com has a blog called "Mavs Courtside View." Its tagline is "The official blog & inside scoop on the Dallas Mavericks." Its URL includes the word blog. Cuban also has a personal blog called BlogMaverick, he invested in publishing platform Blogsmith (which is owned by AOL and powers this AOL-owned blog), and he owns (middling) blog search engine IceRocket.

Cuban is either being incredibly obtuse in order to make a point about his blogger ban, or a substantial portion of his business portfolio of the past several years is a complete sham. Neither option seems commendable. (This seems like a good place to link to two of the best takes on the blogger ban from [shudder] actual blogs: Henry Abbott's TrueHoop post [pay no attention to discussion of that Ziller fellow], and Hardwood Paroxysm's masterful essay.)

Is Cuban Schitzo, or Just Full of Himself? originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:10:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Costas: Blogs a 'High-Tech Place for Idiots'

Tom Ziller — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:40:00 EST

Filed under: NBA Media Watch, ESPN, Blogs

Bob Costas, apparently, is not a fan of the whole new media revolution. He makes plenty of generalizations about the online sportswriting in this discussion with the Miami Herald's Barry Jackson (ostensibly regarding Mark Cuban's locker room ban of bloggers), so we'll just quote a few of the ~~best~~ worst.

"But it's one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis. That, in most cases, grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility. Most of it is a combination of ignorance or invective." ...

"It's just a high-tech place for idiots to do what they used to do on bar stools or in school yards, if they were school yard bullies, or on men's room walls in gas stations. That doesn't mean that anyone with half a brain should respect it."

Costas usually doesn't seem like such a crusty old curmudgeon so clueless to the ways of the world. And honestly, if you cannot discern between 'shocker6969' commenting on an ESPN message board from the myriad talented bloggers and online columnists out there, you should stick to your dead trees and boob tubes, where "authorities" can funnel acceptable content straight into your craw.

The rest of us, who seek out the best in web writing? We were dissatisfied with the old media, which often "grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility" and is often "a combination of ignorance or invective." And thanks to the magic of technology and that crazy American thing called "freedom of ideas," we don't need your approval.

Furthermore, to fact-check Costas a bit: There are apparently no sports blogs based in Albuquerque.

Costas: Blogs a 'High-Tech Place for Idiots' originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:40:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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