Wright Thompson, you magnificent bastard

I don't have a problem with that it's his prerogative to speak to whomever he wants to.

 

Adore is a very strong word Norrin. It was a good piece. It left me wanting more but I wouldn't use adore. But if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. I've got no problem with that assessment.

 

Pivoting to another journalism issue here:

Last night, on the TNT broadcast, Reggie Miller referenced an anecdote from the story. The one about Jordan realizing LeBron always shoots a jumper when he goes left, and drives when he goes right. One problem: Miller credited Bleacher Report, which did what BR does and content-raped the piece and repackaged it as its own (with attribution, of course). Standard blog fare.

Other problem? TNT owns Bleacher Report.

Legit mistake or sign of things to come? Will CNN/TNT Sports force its broadcasters to shoehorn BR references into their broadcasts to promote their Google-raping crap website that feasts of others actual reporting, or was it just Miller being Miller and not understanding how this crap works? (Ernie Johnson offered a correction after the broadcast. On another channel.)

 

I think it might have been a legitimate mistake on Miller's part. Granted, if there is a jock-turned analyst who would be likely to understand why what he did was wrong, it would be Miller. It's also very likely that it was in the notes handed to him by someone else.

It is definitely a sign of things to come.

 

Ernie Johnson corrected it, nicely:

"It was an article written by Wright Thompson of ESPN.com. It was an error, and we regret it."

Someone got in TNT's ass hard and fast.

.be

 

That anyone would cite Bleacher Report for anything is just sad in and of itself.

 

Pivoting back to the story (because Reggie Miller says a lot of things of absurd things on the air, nothing new):

For me, the story was stunningly accurate. Talked to a couple people over the weekend who know him very well, still part of the entourage, and the overwhelming response was: 'Stop fucking around trying to beat people at xbox and ipad games, either focus on making that team competitive or come back and do it yourself.'

So this is not a criticism, just an observation about the overall tone, wondering if anyone else perceived this: I really got the sense that WT went into the story with the notion that he was going to find a sad empty man, and that's what he found.

For example, the detail about how the cigar wouldn't stay lit, and kept going out. It's a great image, a guy who can't stay lit can't even get his cigar to stay lit. Have to believe most of us would have included it. And yet three days later I'm still thinking about it, wondering if that moment would have made its way into the story of Michael was still owning the universe. Sometimes, as they say, a cigar is just a cigar.

 

In fairness to Reggie Miller - and, indeed, it's annoying - how often do people here link to Deadspin for something it simply aggregated from somewhere else and briefly commented upon? A lot of people following the Oscar Pistorius story, for example, are following it on Deadspin, because it's a story right in the site's wheelhouse, even though it does no original reporting (on this particular story, I mean. Obviousy they do more than BR).

 

I think in the case of Deadspin links, it's because that's where we found it. Just speaking for myself, if I find a story on my own, I post the source; if I find it on Gawker or Deadspin, that's what I post.

 

Dick's point would be more analogus if SportsJournalists.com owned Gawker Media.

 

Precisely.

 

TNT did the right thing. But if the tables were turned, would have ESPN have done this?