MODI

I live in Vegas, but I am from LA. I read the LA times on a daily. When I can stomach it. Adande is a only a bit better than Scrapplin’ lips. He will fit in perfectly with ESPN.

Your points about groupthink at ESPN are well taken. That’s why it was particularly troubling for Abbott to defend Holinger initially by saying what a nice guy he is. I don’t doubt it, but what relevance does that have to him saying ill informed and idiotic statements?

What I find troublesome at ESPN and other MSM outlets is that once someone gets placed in “the villian box”, it is very rare that you see articles to the contrary. Besides Isiah, Marbury is a perfect case in point how his community service gets ignored but consensual sex and free spirited interviews get big play.

As far as Isiah goes, I have seen at least two somewhat favorable ESPN articles earlier in the year, one from LZ Granderson and one from Chris Broussard. Besides those guys I always found Henry to be pretty balanced and fair, but True Hoop does not get prime placement at the ESPN site as it should. As for as Hollinger, Chris Sheridan, Marc Stein, and Chad Ford what I tend to notice is that to some degree their articles tend to really start sounding alike after a while (especially the ongoing salary cap and contract obsessions!). You get the sense that they are going out to lunch together, swapping stories, sipping tea while talking and agreeing about all the same things (especially on Isiah!). And if they didn’t agree before lunch, by the end of lunch they are all on the same page. Or maybe they are simply afraid to call their colleagues out on their bullshit. Who knows? In any case ESPN really suffers from a lack of diversity of thought.

That in a nutshell is my overall problem with ESPN’s NBA analysts. It’s really not an individual problem, but when taken together as a collective group ESPN as an institution and ESPN’s readers suffer. It’s kind of like putting a band together but only having saxophone players. It makes for bad music, even if the guys could actually play the sax!!! For their part, Broussard and Ric Bucher are more likely to offer a differing viewpoints on any given subject. It remains to be seen if newly acquired JA Adande will be a free thinker or will eventually become “institutionalized”. Stay tuned.

Abbott’s failure to link to your unique series on Isiah is not because it’s not unique or interesting. The only reason must be that he and they have no real response and don’t want to admit that they were wrong.

Marc, your sentiment is appreciated but I have a feeling that a good reason it wasn’t picked up might have to do with this ESPN link http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/snibbe/060628 in the introductory article. In fairness, I can’t expect an institution to profile an article that criticizes them, so I can’t expect Abbott to pick the Isiah series even if he wanted to (at least the opening article anyway). I understand that potential outcome, but simply can’t let it effect writing the truth.

Now for my part if ESPN does something right, then I will commend them as I did for covering Richard Jefferson’s 3.5 mil donation and Nash/Yao in China. If Hollinger decides tomorrow to write about the true nature and meaning of the salary cap, then I will write an article commending him too. Here is an extreme example: this time last year I couldn’t stand the NY Post’s Marc Berman, but this year I have nothing but praise for him because he was basically the only guy to continually give Marbury’s incredible community service a media voice. Moral of story: None of this shit is personal, it is only about accountability and quality journalism (including my own as HA pointed out).

“Yes, he’s a colleague of mine. Yes, I happen to like the guy. Yes, I’m biased.
I have some shocking news for you: the man does not have fangs nor does he breathe fire. He’s actually nice.”

Hollinger is a tool of the racist machine that is the sports media in general and ESPN in particular. Dig this 75% of white American males are Republican, 95% of on-air talent and decision makers on ESPN are white American Males, Republicans in general hate black folks. Fuck ESPN.

But the truth is that Isiah has had a REMARKABLE record of letting young guys go before everyone else knew they sucked (Frank Williams, Majei Lampe, Sweetney, Butler). He was wrong about Ariza, but all inside sources (including Vescey) believe that trade was made to please LB. And while that is still Isiah’s fault, we do know that he liked Ariza and LB thought he was “delusional”.

Having stated all that, I do think that Nichols will be good in a couple of years. The kid could flat out shoot, but might have been a disruption on the bench this year. Isiah’s plan was for him to go overseas for a year and he said “no” (which is his right). Isiah probably never expected that. James for all his faults is liked by all his teammates. These things become more valuable when talking about your 13th-15th man.