Archive for the 'The Media' Category

Great minds …

Published by Matt Watson on August 4, 2008 in The Media. 51 Comments

… either a) think alike; or b) regurgitate DBB.

[Update: … or c) sometimes jump the gun. Of all the times I’ve suspected my ideas being appropriated by other writers and media outlets, this was a poor example to use to air my frustration.

For one, the subject matter is hardly original — as has been pointed out in the comments, these ideas are already “out there in the vapor.” But most importantly, this specific writer deserved the benefit of the doubt, or at least more professional courtesy. As my linking history shows, I’ve long appreciated his writing and have not suspected “regurgitation” in the past.]

Continue reading ‘Great minds …’

Blogs vs. MSM (I know, I know …)

Published by Matt Watson on July 7, 2008 in Alley-Oops and The Media. 2 Comments

I know the “blogs vs. MSM” debate isn’t nearly as interesting for readers as it is for those of us producing content, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this excellent deconstruction of some commonly-held criticisms of blogs by Ben from BlazersEdge. (hat-tip: Hardwood Paroxysm)

Odd, unsourced rumor of the day …

Published by Matt Watson on June 9, 2008 in Rumors and The Media. 9 Comments

… comes from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post:

It’s no secret NBA front-office executives have tried to measure if the Nuggets might actually be willing to part ways with the 24-year-old Anthony, despite assurances to his agent that Denver is not actively shopping the high-scoring forward on the trade market.

Look for the Pistons, who fell just short of reaching the NBA Finals for the third straight season, to be among the teams putting out feelers in regard to Anthony’s availability, according to a league source.

Does anyone actually know what “a league source” is? Or what “putting out feelers” entails? Did Scott Perry tweet “@Nuggets: We like Melo, who do you want?” Is Arnie Kander sending smoke signals to Steve Hess? Is a reporter simply trolling message boards?

We’ll never know! And when nothing comes of this, no one can ever say Kiszla was wrong. And if someone did, seriously, man, it was a just a “feeler,” cut him some slack.

(For whatever it’s worth, the rumor is spreading, though it’s always impossible to gauge why — are other reporters chiming in analysis to avoid being scooped, or have they independently verified the rumor in the first place? Sorry for being skeptical, unnamed sources do nothing for me these days.)

Update: Dana Gauruder of the Oakland Press shares my opinion:

A short Denver Post article, which stated that the Pistons might be interested in Anthony, created the feeding frenzy. This struck me as either pure speculation or someone within the Nuggets organization floating a balloon to see how much they could get for their pseudo-superstar.

Anthony is a prolific scorer, the type of player the Pistons have lacked during their long run among the Eastern Conference elite. But on every other level, Anthony is the type of player and person Dumars doesn’t want.

McCosky backs off comments about Flip returning

Published by Matt Watson on June 3, 2008 in Rumors and The Media. 4 Comments

Yesterday, Chris McCosky was confident that Flip Saunders would stay put:

We were all wrong. All of us who speculated that the Pistons’ loss in Game 6 to Boston spelled the end of Flip Saunders’ coaching life in Detroit were wrong.

Saunders met briefly with Pistons president Joe Dumars on Saturday and all indications are that he was told he will be back.

Understand that with the Pistons, a coach’s job security can change in an instant, but as of today, the plan is for Saunders to finish out the final year of his contract. He’s already working on next season. He will supervise a workout of draft candidates at the practice facility Wednesday.

After posting McCosky’s comments, I eventually updated the post to include dissenting opinions from WDFN’s Matt Dery and A. Sherrod Blakely. Interestingly enough, McCosky himself is already hedging his bets by backing off (excuse me, “clarifying”) his comments in today’s Detroit News:

What I wrote was true. Saunders and Pistons president Joe Dumars met Saturday. Saunders left with the understanding he was to carry on as coach.

I also wrote: “Understand that with the Pistons, a coach’s job security can change in an instant, but as of today, the plan is for Saunders to finish out the final year of his contract.”

Well, yeah, but he also boldly proclaimed “we were all wrong” by thinking that Flip would return, as well as that Saunders “was told he will be back.” Silly us for believing that. So what did McCosky really mean?

Here’s why I wrote that qualifying sentence. Saunders also knew when he left that meeting, Dumars had not yet discussed anything with Pistons owner Bill Davidson. Dumars is expected to meet with Davidson sometime this week.

If Davidson wants a coaching change, then a coaching change will be made. That’s what happened in 2003 with Rick Carlisle. Dumars intended to bring Carlisle back. Davidson, though, was adamant he didn’t want Carlisle to coach his team anymore.

Fortunately, Larry Brown became available and a smooth change was made.

Ah, now it makes sense. Apparently Davidson has a Steinbrenner-esque mean streak in him and doesn’t actually trust his President of Basketball Operations to, you know, preside over operations pertaining to basketball.

Or … perhaps in hindsight, after seeing how many people were taking his initial article as fact, McCosky regrets speaking so authoritatively, especially since he didn’t cite a source (named or unnamed) to fall back on. Perhaps the only thing Saunders was told during his meeting with Dumars was to carry on as usual and that a final decision would be forthcoming.

Either way, McCosky has now backed himself into another corner: if Flip does get canned, it’s because Davidson overruled Dumars’ judgment. Who knew one of the most highly-regarded executives in all of basketball had such little power? Sigh.

I actually agree with the general tenor of McCosky’s ensuing defense of Saunders, but making a bold prediction one day and feeling compelled to hedge the next without having the humility to say “I may have been wrong” or even “I may have been vague” is annoying. My reading comprehension is fine, thanks.

Michael Curry will interview with Chicago

Published by Matt Watson on June 1, 2008 in Rumors and The Media. 5 Comments

Flip Saunders didn’t speak to reporters after leaving the Pistons’ practice facility Saturday afternoon, but assistant coach Michael Curry did, addressing both the speculation that he might replace Saunders as well as where he’s at in regards to interviewing other jobs. From Shannon Shelton in the Detroit Free Press:

Assistant coach Michael Curry talked briefly about his future with the Pistons but said he didn’t speak about the top job with team executives Saturday morning.

“It hasn’t been discussed,” Curry said. “We just finished the season. My mind was focused on the opportunity that we had to get to the Finals. My mind wasn’t on nothing else and no other team prior to now.”

Curry did confirm that the Chicago Bulls had spoken with his lawyer about their vacancy, but the Chicago Tribune reported last month that the Pistons refused to give the Bulls permission to interview Curry, a sign that they want to keep him.

Curry added that he’d be meeting with his lawyer soon to talk about his future.

“I hear things in the media, and I hear things from (my lawyer) as well,” Curry said. “He knew during the season that it wasn’t time to talk about it. We’d discuss it and see what the talk was, and then our focus was how I could continue to help (the Pistons) get better here.”

I think the whole “Curry wasn’t allowed to interview” thing was overblown. For one, Doug Collins is all but officially Chicago’s new head coach, so if Curry is being interviewed now, he’s most likely being interviewed for an assistant’s job, and it makes no sense that the Pistons would deny him the chance at a promotion but allow a lateral move. If the Bulls were actually denied before (and from the sounds of it, it was his decision not to pursue anything), it had to have been the timing of the playoffs.

So why was Terry Porter allowed to interview with the Suns? Perhaps because Steve Kerr expressed to Joe Dumars that Porter was a very serious candidate. From A. Sherrod Blakely:

Porter, who coached the Milwaukee Bucks for two seasons (2004-2005), has already interviewed once with the Suns and is among a handful that Phoenix GM Steve Kerr will talk with a second time.

“I’m thankful I’m in the second round process,” Porter said on Saturday. “Go down there and do the best that I can do, and see how it plays out.”

Also, it’s not accurate to cite that Chicago Tribune article as confirmation that Curry was denied permission. The exact quote was, “the Pistons continue to give signs they won’t allow the Bulls to interview,” which as I noted at time time, reeks of a reporter not actually knowing for sure but still drawing his own conclusions.

Validating that claim by referencing it again is the MSM echo chamber at its worst, and it makes me wonder if I made of a mistake of buying into the whole “Michael Curry is being groomed as Flip’s heir apparent” in the first place. How do we know this? No one in the organization has put their name to it, but it’s been repeated unsourced by the local media for months, which makes me wonder if it simply began as someone’s hunch before it was repeated so many times it became accepted as fact.

Pistons/Magic tensions spill into the media room

Published by Matt Watson on May 11, 2008 in 2008 Playoffs, Magic and The Media. 24 Comments

From Chris McCosky’s blog Friday afternoon:

So I go on this talk radio show down here Thursday afternoon. I thought they wanted a Chauncey Billups update. But no, this guy — I don’t remember his name — says, “Now that the Magic have control of the series…” And I stopped him. Control of the series? How does being down 2-1 with two games still to be played in Detroit give the Magic control of the series. […] It was his show, so I tried to be diplomatic. I said from the Magic point of view, sure, they probably feel like the tide had turned. But I said the Pistons didn’t feel that way at all. Well, the jackass just couldn’t accept that. He must asked me three more times, in three different ways, if the Pistons feared the Magic now. I was like, Dude, they have a healthy respect for the Magic, they always have. But they don’t fear them. My God, get a grip.

I was thinking about this — early in the series, the Magic players made a big deal about not being intimidated by the Pistons, not backing down and all that. But where did that come from? The Pistons never talked like they were out to punk the Magic. They never talked like they didn’t respect them. The Pistons were actually surprised that the Magic had that mind-set. So where did it come from? It came from the Magic’s own inferiority complex. They are the ones who felt punked. Their media buys into it and perpetuates it. Even this half-baked talk show guy was all, “I’m going to stand up to this Detroit writer. I am going to show how tough I am.” Whatever.

Here’s how tough this guy was. He apparently kept ripping on me AFTER I was off the air. Real braveheart, this guy. He had no retort when I was talking to him, but boy, he tore me up when he knew I couldn’t answer back. Piece of work. But that’s how they roll down here.

From Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel following Saturday’s game:

Many of us in the press room before the game could see this coming.

That’s when a hulking Pistons beat writer for the Detroit News nearly beat up undersized Orlando sports radio host Jerry O’Neill before the game. Even the Magic media came up small.

And that’s how we roll in Detroit. I’ve never seen this O’Neill fellow, but my money is on McCosky.

(And by the way, even the locals down in Florida are embarrassed by Orlando’s media. The Magic look like they’ll be good for quite some time — hopefully in a few years the media down there will catch up and learn how to act like a big league sports market.)

Update: McCosky explains what happened in his blog today:

Anyway, I walk up to him and I said, “You always rip on your guests once they are off the air and can’t respond?” He said something about how it was his show and for me not to tell him how to run his show. I questioned his courage and some other things and we went back and forth. I was holding my laptop, so it wasn’t like I was about to strike him. But I was up in his face, and I suppose I might have cursed a bit. Again, sort of what I do. I remember him saying that I talked down to him, and I said something like, I only talk down to stupid people. I suppose that wasn’t very nice.

It was getting pretty heated when Sherrod Blakely from Booth Newspapers stepped between us and guided me away. I am embarrassed how many times Sherrod has had to pull me away — usually its from a visiting camera guy or an overzealous security guard. God bless you, Sherrod.

His whole post is worth a read — if I blockquoted the interesting parts, I’d be re-printing the whole thing. You know, for a guy who says he’s not a fan of blogs, he does a pretty good job writing one. There’s obviously no place for this type of stuff in the actually paper but it’s certainly entertaining.

Gus Johnson replaces George Blaha … for one game

Published by Matt Watson on December 28, 2007 in The Media. 4 Comments

It seems there are fewer and fewer sports announcers I really dig these days, but Gus Johnson is definitely one of them. With that in mind, I got pretty excited to learn that for at least one night, he’ll be the voice of the Pistons, subbing for George Blaha, who will be attending his other duties as Michigan State’s play-by-play man as the Spartans play in the Champs Sports Bowl. (Johnson usually does radio for the Knicks, but fortunately New York is off.) From the Detroit News:

Broadcaster Gus Johnson has covered a lot of big events in nearly two decades — Olympics, the NFL, NCAA Tournament, play-by-play for the Knicks.

Despite all that, Johnson says broadcasting tonight’s Pacers-Pistons game (8, Channel 4) will top his career highlight list.

“I’m just a Detroit boy who grew up loving the Pistons, and now I get to come full-circle for one night,” said Johnson, who grew up in the Livernois and Davison area. “I’m nervous, excited, it’s getting me a little choked up, really.”

I’ll actually be at the Palace covering the game for HOOPSWORLD, but with Johnson on the mic, I’ll also be recording the game to watch on Saturday. Not that I expect Pistons-Pacers to match UCLA-Gonzaga (watch for a young Arron Afflalo), but I’m really curious to hear him call his hometown team.

A defense for wanting to see Amir Johnson play

Published by Matt Watson on November 12, 2007 in From the news and The Media. 27 Comments

Chris McCosky of the Detroit News has noted in his last two blog posts that he and Flip Saunders are confused at the amount of attention Amir Johnson has received from fans. On Sunday he said:

Saunders, like the rest of us, is mystified at how much attention Johnson is getting, both from the media and fans. “Thirteen years ago, I had Kevin Garnett and at that time he was the first guy to come into the league from high school in like 20 years. Amir has gotten more publicity this year, a guy who’s never played, than Garnett did that first year, and here’s a guy who was the first high school guy in 20 years.”

I think it’s safe to say that Saunders is either relying on hyperbole to make a point or employing a bit of revisionist history. From the New York Times on June 29, 1995, the day after Garnett was drafted fifth overall:

Though [Joe] Smith was No. 1, no prize seemed more revered than Garnett, the 6-10 senior who attended his high school prom only three weeks ago. Less than a month ago he announced his decision to forego college, and the flurry of interest that followed was dizzying.

Much finagling and last-minute jockeying for the right to draft Garnett was taking place Tuesday night and early this morning, but the league’s 2 P.M. trading deadline passed without a major deal being struck. [Isiah] Thomas of the Raptors was just one of several general managers who insisted that Garnett had more talent and ability than any of his peers.

From another NY Times article the next day:

“Garnett’s got everybody going, “Whoa,’ ” [George] Karl said. “A lot of people say he has a Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving flair. That’s strong, huh?”

Is there more interest in Amir than your average bench warmer? Definitely. Does it even approach the hysteria surrounding Garnett as a rookie? No. No, no, no. And no.

Today, McCosky again chastised fans for expecting too much:

On another issue: Let’s back off of Amir Johnson for a bit, OK? I don’t know what some people expect from this kid, but he’s not Magic Johnson. He’s not ready to be in the regular rotation and contribute 25 to 30 minutes a game. He’s not going to be ready all year, is my guess. This isn’t the Pistons’ version of Cameron Maybin. Nobody’s ever said he was the greatest prospect ever to come through the pike. He was the 56th pick in the draft, taken right out of high school. He wasn’t the first overall pick. He’s an extremely athletic but extremely raw kid. He is active and he can finish around the basket. He can block shots and run the floor. But other than that, he’s still finding his way (on the court and off it). For now and for the foreseeable future, he’s the 11th or 12th man this year getting mostly just spot minutes.

I don’t think the fans want him to be the next Kevin Garnett or Magic Johnson — just the current Amir Johnson will do, for the reasons McCosky himself laid out.

Johnson has impressed on the court nearly every chance he’s had. Of his play in the D-League last year, a reporter in Sioux Falls said “every game he makes at least one play that leaves you speaking in tongues.” And Mo McHone, his coach last year with the SkyForce, said “I just don’t see how he’s not putting in minutes [for Detroit]. I think he’s one of the best fullcourt big men I’ve seen play.”

We know the Pistons think highly of him: last January, George David, the Pistons director of scouting, admitted that, “Amir might be the only untouchable in the league who’s on the inactive roster,” and Keith Langlois, the editor of Pistons.com, speculated that, “It’s possible that Johnson will become the first player to whom Dumars offers a maximum contract.”

And even though Johnson was drafted 56th overall in 2005, a lot of people, McCosky’s co-worker Rob Parker included, think he would have been a lottery pick in last June’s draft had he gone to college for two years instead:

“Johnson, just 20 years old, has to be looked at as almost a lottery pick. That’s probably what he would have been had he gone to college for two years and not come to the NBA out of high school.”

But it’s not just what other people have said about Johnson that has gotten fans excited: it’s what we’ve seen with our own eyes. His first NBA points came on a windmill dunk, and the first time he was given meaningful minutes as a rookie, he scored 18 points in 18 minutes without missing a single shot. And in last year’s regular-season finale against Boston’s ballyhooed Al Jefferson, he scored 20 with 12 boards, three steals and four blocks.

Yes, the bulk of his production has come against questionable competition in an inferior league as well as meaningless end-of-season games, but you play the games that are on the schedule, and you play the minutes that the coach gives you — a lesson Darko Milicic never really learned while he was here. But unlike Darko (and more recently, Carlos Delfino), Johnson has never publicly complained or otherwise resented the opportunities that have come his way.

Is it strange for fans to be so excited about a kid who hasn’t proven himself? Perhaps to someone in the trenches concerned about winning (or reporting) one game at a time, but from afar I think it’s only natural for fans to occasionally step back and admire the big picture.

Part of what makes Johnson so intriguing as a player is because we don’t know what his ceiling is, which can’t be said about any of the starters. We know the veteran core is good enough to carry the team deep into the playoffs — we’ve seen it happen five years in a row. But the starting lineup is also full of guys playing at their peak or slightly just past — who’s going to carry the torch next year, and the year after?

With any luck, it’s going to be Johnson, and Jason Maxiell, Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo (and maybe, just maybe, Cheikh Samb). But we don’t know for sure, because with the exception of Maxiell, we just haven’t seen those guys get extended minutes. For the rookies, that’s to be expected. But for Johnson, I’d expect him to be something more than the 11th or 12th man in his third year in the league — and it sounds like Joe Dumars does, too. In September, Johnson told the Sporting News:

“I am going to play,” Johnson says. “Joe Dumars tells me constantly, ‘This is your year. There will be no DNPs this year.’ “

Granted, Johnson has had a few DNPs already this year, but that’s because he missed almost the entire preseason with the ankle injury and opened the year with related Achilles soreness. But Dumars reiterated what Johnson’s role would be on the team during a recent interview with Langlois on Pistons.com:

No – he won’t be the odd man out. He’ll get his opportunity this year. I’ve talked to him several times, Flip Saunders has talked to him several times about how much we’re going to depend on him this year. It’s an extremely long season and we wanted to make sure he didn’t get emotionally down, because with an injury like this it can take a while to get back to full strength. He had never been through this before, so we have been constantly talking to him about continuing to work hard, that we have tremendous confidence in you and your time is going to come where we’re going to put you on the court and you’re going to have to compete the way you see Maxey and Sheed and Dice are.

Now that Johnson is back (or extremely close) to full strength, we’re seeing Saunders give him opportunities: he played the entire fourth quarter on Friday and saw five minutes with the starters in the second quarter on Sunday. I’m content with that, and I imagine most fans are, too, especially since his minutes will come at the expense of Maxiell, a fan-favorite in his own right.

But if Johnson is consistently given five minutes here, seven minutes there, a dozen minutes now and then, I have a hunch he’ll force his way into a larger role next year, just like Maxiell did last season. All players need to earn their opportunities, but first they need to be given a chance.

MSM tosses cliches at new media

Published by Matt Watson on November 5, 2007 in Around the Internets and The Media. 11 Comments

Chris McCosky doesn’t like bloggers. Or most bloggers. Or something.

I’m not touching it (because I already did two years ago and again this past summer), but plenty of other people have.

Update: I didn’t provide a direct link on purpose. The column was designed to offend and elicit a reaction, so it’s getting no direct traffic from this site.

Another update: I missed it (due to the lack of RSS!) but McCosky actually responded to some of the criticism lobbed his way, including a clarification:

And to those out there who are trying to run a credible, information-driven site, those who give credit to the reporters whose information and stories you refer to and really care about presenting a fair and accurate service, I apologize if you feel I lumped you into the same mix as the irresponsible sites. That was not the intent.

Hat-tip to TrueHoop for spotting the response.

Andy Miller is mad at Chris McCosky, and it’s my fault

Published by Matt Watson on July 3, 2007 in Rumors and The Media. 18 Comments

Because I’m a blogger. Trust me, it’ll make sense later.

Even though Miller, Chauncey Billups’ agent, disputes that an agreement is in place between his client and the Pistons, McCosky is sticking to his original story, which is that a five-year, $60 million deal is in place. McCosky explains in his blog on the Detroit News:

At about 4 p.m. today, I reported on Detnews.com and WDFN that the Pistons and Chauncey Billups had agreed structurally to a five-year, $60 million offer. That has not changed, despite a lot of other media outlets’ attempts to discredit that report. That’s how this sickening business works sometimes.

I never said the deal was done. No deal can be officially done until Billups signs, and he can’t do that until July 11. Andy Miller, Billups’ agent, is furious with me and that bothers me. I have had a great working relationship with Andy and Chauncey and I want that to continue. I wasn’t trying to do harm to anybody. Announcing the structure of a five-year, $60 million deal didn’t sound to me like bad news for either one of them. It’s a great offer — by average annual salary the richest in Pistons’ history.

But Andy feels like the Pistons were trying to pressure him into a deal. That’s not remotely the case, but that’s how he feels. He was also angry that the news got out before he could talk to Chauncey. He tore into me and then categorically denied agreeing to any part of any kind of deal. That’s fine. Except, the structure of the deal is still in place and Billups has no other offer even close to bid against it. Are there important details to clean up? Of course. Are any of those details potentially deal-breaking? Don’t think so.

Actually, he didn’t initially announce the structure of the deal, at least not on DetNews.com (I didn’t hear the WDFN report). To recap, his initial announcement (since scrubbed off DetNews.com and replaced with an updated article) consisted simply of this:

Free-agent guard Chauncey Billups agreed Tuesday in principle to a five-year, $60-million deal to remain with the Pistons.

Billups, who will be 31 next season, became a free agent Sunday. He will be the highest-paid Piston next season. There apparently were no other serious bidders for Billups.

There’s no explanation of structure in that announcement, and it was that initial announcement that set the wheels in motion, prompting A. Sherrod Blakely of MLive to call Miller and have Miller refute that any agreement was in place.

Can you blame Blakely for calling Miller? Of course not; he’s playing catch-up on a story another reporter is trying to break. And can you blame Blakely for relaying the news to fellow MLive employee Justin Rogers that Miller refuted the news? Not at all; the fact Miller (apparently the only person both privy to the negotiations and willing to go on the record) contradicted a published report is inherently newsworthy.

And just to set facts straight, it was only after McCosky’s original announcement was updated that he actually explained the structure of the deal (four years guaranteed, admitting it was still unclear whether the fifth one would be), and it was in that same update that he included quotes from Miller (”I would not characterize it as being wrapped up …”) confirming Blakely’s report that this wasn’t a done deal.

In any case, McCosky’s blog entry tonight also said this:

Listen, this is a great offer for Billups. Are we really at a point where giving a 30-year-old point guard a five-year deal that averages $12 million per is considered a low-ball offer? …

The Pistons are bidding against themselves for Billups. On Tuesday, they could have told Miller to go ahead and seek your best offer. The best he would have come back with, most likely, would have been a $9 million per year starting salary with the Bucks. But the Pistons didn’t do that. They made an offer that reflects both what he has done for the franchise the past five years and for what he means to the team going forward. Nothing about a five-year, $60 million offer is insulting. Nothing. And at the end of the day, Chauncey will happily sign it.

Not to split hairs, but a five-year, $60 million contract probably starts out at $9.75 million a year, with 10.5% raises each year (why 10.5%? Because it’s the max allowed by the collective bargaining agreement), culminating in a $14.5 million fifth year. A five-year deal starting at $9 million with 10.5% raises each year culminates with a $13.4 million fifth year and is worth a total of $55.5 million.

So yeah, using McCosky’s claim of a $60 million deal in place and his example of what Billups could get elsewhere, the Pistons would be chipping in an extra $4.5 million over the life of the contract. That’s a nice chunk of change, but definitely not overwhelming. Just felt I should point that out, since “$4.5 million over the life of a contract” puts things into better perspective than talking about “a five-year deal that averages $12 million per” and “a $9 million starting salary with the Bucks,” which makes it sound like you’re comparing two very different scenarios, when they’re actually quite close.

Why am I bothering to set all this straight? Perhaps because McCosky’s closing thoughts rubbed me the wrong way:

In the old days, before ESPN, the internet and blogs, a reporter didn’t have to rush to print every step of a contract negotiation. You laid out the parameters for both sides, you reported whatever propaganda each side wanted to spew and you waited for the final deal. We can’t do that any more. Any blip of information, however preliminary or non-binding, has to be put out there immediately. So, you are going to have days like this, when a normal step of a negotiation process gets diced and sliced by various media outlets until you can’t remember what the original piece of news was. The news is this — the basic structure of a deal is in place for Billups to return to the Pistons for the next five years.

I can understand McCosky’s frustration with a never-ending news-cycle — he began his career in another era and has had to learn how to do his job differently on the fly. But in this specific instance, I don’t buy that the story had “to be put out there immediately.” It seems that he was only one who had the inside scoop, so there really was no rush. Calling in to talk on WDFN and putting up a hastily written 50-word announcement on DetNews.com reeks of trying to be known as the guy who broke the story, not as the guy who got the story right. (And did he really throw “ESPN, the internet and blogs” under the bus and not talk radio? Of those, talk radio is usually the most irresponsible.)

Before saying a word to talk radio or putting up a bare-bones announcement online, why not place a call to Miller and invest another 45 minutes cobbling together a more informative article explaining that McCosky’s anonymous source doesn’t agree with what Chauncey’s camp is willing to put on the record?

(Which, mind you, still hasn’t been done, at least not with the version of the story presently online. Nowhere does McCosky reveal where he’s getting his info. I’m assuming he has a source — and judging by Miller’s reaction, a source within the team — not because he actually reveals as much but because I’m not willing to admit he simply has divine inspiration.)

Regardless of how this post might come across, I don’t actually have anything against McCosky. In fact, I believe him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Miller is the one trying to spin things in an attempt to control the story and what his client hears. But lashing out at other media outlets for not blindly accepting his word and then blaming the internet for his burning desire to scoop the world? That just doesn’t make sense.

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