OKC media vs. OKC Thunder

Must be fun covering the Thunder these days. Jeez.

"But Westbrook can also be unnecessarily harsh on reporters. One night, a game ran late. Darnell Mayberry, the Oklahoman’s senior Thunder reporter, was up against deadline. He brought his laptop into the locker room to move quotes directly from the players’ lips to his copy. Mayberry sat in a chair in front of an empty locker. Westbrook saw him and told him the chairs were for players only.

Mayberry got up. But then a funny thing happened. Backup point guard Reggie Jackson took his chair, wheeled it across the locker room, and offered it to Mayberry. Remember that when you wonder why Jackson now plays for the Pistons."

Distant Thunder: What Did Oklahoma City’s Media Do to Piss Off Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant? «

 

Great article. Bryan Curtis is one of my favorites. He single-handedly made my Texas Monthly subscriptions worth it.

 

I just became a Reggie Jackson fan.

 

The Tampa Bay Times writer is going to writer a first-person column about how upset he was by reading how mean Russell Westbrook is to Berry Tramel.

 

Just read that column. Like many these days, longish essays/stories don't keep my attention (mostly because I read so many at work). This one did. Making a story about the OK media sexy? Nice work.

 

Yeah, that was a great article.

 

Westbrook seems to be a real winner.

 

I wonder what imapct, if any, he's had on Durant. I thought Durant had a reputation for being great to deal with. Maybe that was a national media myth.

 

Yeah, it seems Westbrook has influenced Durant and not vice versa.

 

Bob Stoops is positively sporting wood. The heat is off.

 

I put it less on him and more on hovering, smothering PR. Of course, you can't tell them that, or you'll get frozen out.

It's a weird world of brand management we live in. I've seen actors and musicians lives ruined more by personal assistants than I ever have journalists, and, on some level, athletes buy into the BS the PR folks pump into them, only to realize later that the PR is defending some vague ideal than not even the most ardent fans believe in.

I've written before: Tramel's a pro. Very good. As good as what he does as Westbrook is at his. They just get paid different.

 

It's implied in the story that the Thunder do that on purpose. They figure that if they "protect" players from the media, they'll be more likely to sign and/or keep high-profile free agents.