Adrian Wojnarowski piece

[Dick Whitman]

The New Republic goes after his methods and accuracy hard.

Discusses things like kid glove treatment of Joe Dumars and alleged vendetta against LeBron James. Also a lot about his apparent animosity toward ESPN:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/...basketballs-reporting-machine-gets-his-scoops

 

[JayFarrar]

Lots of inside baseball, I thought.

The parking lot anecdote was weird. Competing reporters talking **** to each other on the beat? I need my fainting coach as I seem to have been overcome by the vapors.

He hasn't had much right on LeBron, but has been right on most everything else NBA-related, I guess. I quit paying attention to the NBA at least a decade ago. Probably closer to two decades ago.

I'd also like to note that when I want introspective, factual, named quote-based reporting on sports commentary writers, I always turn to The New Republic. [/sarcasm]

 

[MisterCreosote]

"Opinion columnist, who is also adept at breaking news, judiciously chooses on whom and what to opine." Tear up the front.

I think my favorite part is when this dip**** writer holds up ESPN as an example of strict guidelines on anonymous sourcing.

Also, why can I find not one mention of this $500,000 fine levied on Joe Dumars anywhere except in the linked piece? The writer says it's "publicly known."

 

[Dick Whitman]

Lots of inside baseball, I thought.
I'd also like to note that when I want introspective, factual, named quote-based reporting on sports commentary writers, I always turn to The New Republic. [/sarcasm]

How does where the piece ran have anything to do with an assessment of its merits?

 

[MisterCreosote]

I'm calling bull**** on that Dumars fine, unless further explanation is given.

 

[Dick Whitman]

That's interesting. I can't find it, either. That would be a pretty big mistake to make in a piece partly about another reporter's pretty big mistakes.

 

[LongTimeListener]

So this is the new The New Republic.

Guy from Deadspin gets hard-on for well-known reporter. Not news. Not really very interesting except to confirm the psychosis and inferiority complex that are part and parcel of working for Deadspin.

 

[cranberry]

I'd say the quality of TNR was going down but it's been awful for years. Why was this guy stalking Wojo again?

 

[Dan Feldman]

"Opinion columnist, who is also adept at breaking news, judiciously chooses on whom and what to opine." Tear up the front.

Also, why can I find not one mention of this $500,000 fine levied on Joe Dumars anywhere except in the linked piece? The writer says it's "publicly known."

That's not what the article says.

Draper:

"In 2010, the NBA fined Dumars $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential league memos to Wojnarowski, according to multiple sources. This matches the third largest publicly known fine the league has ever handed down."​

He cites multiple anonymous sources and compares the fine to publicly known ones. He never claims the Dumars fine was publicly known, which is why you won't find record of it elsewhere.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I thought it was a strange piece.

The LeBron stuff. In his columns, yeah, he went after him pretty hard. Which is okay. That is allowed. As much criticism as LeBron gets, there are also many people who pounce on anyone who rips him. Appreciate him! Best player in the game! He's done things that deserve to be ripped (he has been too passive at times; his free agency was weird; he did disappear against Boston). What the piece doesn't mention is, from 2012-2014, when LeBron took his game to an even higher level, Wojnarowski has written more fawning pieces on him than just about anyone. Almost as if you can write different things based on different performances. Lakers fans actually have these same beefs with Woj about Kobe. He ripped him at times post-Shaq, and then when the Lakers were winning titles again, wrote columns praising him (which he still does). It'd be like getting mad at someone for ripping Magic after the 1984 Finals and then praising him for his effort in the 1987 Finals.

I also got a kick out of Craggs, of course, being quoted for ripping Woj for ripping LeBron. When Kobe scored 81, Slate--#slatepitches--wrote a piece criticizing him. Because he didn't pass the ball enough. While rallying his team from nearly 20 points down. And scoring the second-most points in NBA history. The byline on the story, which could have been ghostwritten by Smush Parker? Tommy Craggs. It was a piece Deadspin would usually mock.

He maybe didn't rip Dumars enough. Okay.

He gets things wrong sometimes. Like, Ric Bucher, quoted in the piece on the record at least, saying that Kobe would never, ever, ever wear a Lakers uniform again? That was seven years ago.

He ripped Hollinger. I know it's a sin in the analytics community to do that because he's proof that PER rules and he built the Grizzlies, but...he had nothing to do with bringing in the three pieces that have carried the Grizzlies these past years: Gasol, Randolph, and Conley. That was the old GM who didn't know anything. And for a franchise that's been as solid on the court as they've been, it has been a bit chaotic off. Getting rid of Hollins. And then nearly losing Joerger after one season. Is it out of line to criticize some of the new people in the front office who contributed to that uncertainty on the bench?

He now has more sources than he did when he first started at Yahoo. That's bad. Bad Woj.

The Dumars fine: If true, are we supposed to be upset at that? Woj convinced a source to leak him things. Gawker has built an entire offshoot website based just on the Sony leaks, they're loving them so much. But Wojnarowski getting a few memos is...bad? (not to mention the image of the NBA bigwigs altering memos to catch a leaker is funny. "No, no, in that one say that we honor the accomplishments of Earvin Johnson, but leave the Magic part out.").

Aside from LeBron--who can't be criticized--a few of his other targets include "the New York Knicks management, the “Carolina way,” John Calipari, Larry Brown, college basketball coaches, former player’s union executive director Billy Hunter, agent David Falk, and Boston Celtics executive Danny Ainge."

God forbid anyone target those concepts or people. Seriously? Is he not supposed to target Knicks management, Larry Brown's travels and rivalries, power-hungry college coaches, and Billy frickin' Hunter? Huh?

And this:

But that’s precisely the problem. Wojnarowski’s reporting is rife with opinion, conjecture, and speculation—whether his own or an anonymous league source’s—and it can be impossible to tell what he is actually reporting.

Did the Irony Police make it over to the new board yet? That's a Deadspin writer writing those words.

Am I putting Woj in a LeBron category where you can't criticize anything he does? No. He's fair game like anyone else. But this piece just didn't make much sense to me.

 

[Dyno]

Thanks, STG, for saying (much more eloquently) what I didn't have time to.

 

[Dan Feldman]

I thought it was a strange piece.

The LeBron stuff. In his columns, yeah, he went after him pretty hard. Which is okay. That is allowed. As much criticism as LeBron gets, there are also many people who pounce on anyone who rips him. Appreciate him! Best player in the game! He's done things that deserve to be ripped (he has been too passive at times; his free agency was weird; he did disappear against Boston). What the piece doesn't mention is, from 2012-2014, when LeBron took his game to an even higher level, Wojnarowski has written more fawning pieces on him than just about anyone. Almost as if you can write different things based on different performances. Lakers fans actually have these same beefs with Woj about Kobe. He ripped him at times post-Shaq, and then when the Lakers were winning titles again, wrote columns praising him (which he still does). It'd be like getting mad at someone for ripping Magic after the 1984 Finals and then praising him for his effort in the 1987 Finals.

I also got a kick out of Craggs, of course, being quoted for ripping Woj for ripping LeBron. When Kobe scored 81, Slate--#slatepitches--wrote a piece criticizing him. Because he didn't pass the ball enough. While rallying his team from nearly 20 points down. And scoring the second-most points in NBA history. The byline on the story, which could have been ghostwritten by Smush Parker? Tommy Craggs. It was a piece Deadspin would usually mock.

He maybe didn't rip Dumars enough. Okay.

He gets things wrong sometimes. Like, Ric Bucher, quoted in the piece on the record at least, saying that Kobe would never, ever, ever wear a Lakers uniform again? That was seven years ago.

He ripped Hollinger. I know it's a sin in the analytics community to do that because he's proof that PER rules and he built the Grizzlies, but...he had nothing to do with bringing in the three pieces that have carried the Grizzlies these past years: Gasol, Randolph, and Conley. That was the old GM who didn't know anything. And for a franchise that's been as solid on the court as they've been, it has been a bit chaotic off. Getting rid of Hollins. And then nearly losing Joerger after one season. Is it out of line to criticize some of the new people in the front office who contributed to that uncertainty on the bench?

He now has more sources than he did when he first started at Yahoo. That's bad. Bad Woj.

The Dumars fine: If true, are we supposed to be upset at that? Woj convinced a source to leak him things. Gawker has built an entire offshoot website based just on the Sony leaks, they're loving them so much. But Wojnarowski getting a few memos is...bad? (not to mention the image of the NBA bigwigs altering memos to catch a leaker is funny. "No, no, in that one say that we honor the accomplishments of Earvin Johnson, but leave the Magic part out.").

Aside from LeBron--who can't be criticized--a few of his other targets include "the New York Knicks management, the “Carolina way,” John Calipari, Larry Brown, college basketball coaches, former player’s union executive director Billy Hunter, agent David Falk, and Boston Celtics executive Danny Ainge."

God forbid anyone target those concepts or people. Seriously? Is he not supposed to target Knicks management, Larry Brown's travels and rivalries, power-hungry college coaches, and Billy frickin' Hunter? Huh?

And this:


Did the Irony Police make it over to the new board yet? That's a Deadspin writer writing those words.

Am I putting Woj in a LeBron category where you can't criticize anything he does? No. He's fair game like anyone else. But this piece just didn't make much sense to me.

I think you're reading this as a hit piece, trying to understand why every point is critical of Woj and whether that's fair. I don't think it's intended as a hit piece, though there are certainly points of criticism. I think it's a look into a writer so many of us read religiously -- good, bad and neutral.

If there are elements of the story that you can't figure out how they bash Woj, they probably don't.

 

[MisterCreosote]

That's not what the article says.

Draper:

"In 2010, the NBA fined Dumars $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential league memos to Wojnarowski, according to multiple sources. This matches the third largest publicly known fine the league has ever handed down."​

He cites multiple anonymous sources and compares the fine to publicly known ones. He never claims the Dumars fine was publicly known, which is why you won't find record of it elsewhere.

You're saying it's believable that an NBA executive could get fined a half-million dollars without anyone finding out about it? If true, that has to be close to the biggest fine ever levied against one person. You're telling me the media wouldn't have known about it, or if they did, they wouldn't have reported it?

Sorry, I can't believe that for a second.

 

[Dan Feldman]

You're saying it's believable that an NBA executive could get fined a half-million dollars without anyone finding out about it? If true, that has to be close to the biggest fine ever levied against one person. You're telling me the media wouldn't have known about it, or if they did, they wouldn't have reported it?

Sorry, I can't believe that for a second.

Well, someone did find out...

 

[MisterCreosote]

Well, someone did find out...

Four years later, and for a piece intended solely to be a hatchet job.

I mean, NBA fines are public record, aren't they? There are databases out there that list all of them except this one.

Micky Arison got fined the exact same amount in 2011, and while the league didn't comment, it did confirm it. Why the difference with the alleged Dumars fine?

 

[Dan Feldman]

Four years later, and for a piece intended solely to be a hatchet job.

Yes, because you know Draper's intention

 

[MisterCreosote]

I know enough to know I don't yet trust him or his "sources."

 

[LongTimeListener]

I love the part where he starts lamenting the use of anonymous sources, and A) holds up ESPN as the standard-bearer of strict journalism in this regard; then B) writes that "In reporting this piece I pushed interviewees to include information on the record, but found it impossible not to use anonymous sources. The media culture surrounding the NBA assumes anonymity as default, often with a weak justification that goes something like “hey, this isn’t national security reporting, so who cares?”

So Woj shouldn't have done it, but this **** is hard, dawg!

 

[Dan Feldman]

I know enough to know I don't yet trust him or his "sources."

That's fair. I've been reading Draper long enough to know I find him fair-minded, and I trust him to report that responsibly. If I weren't as familiar with his work, I'd have doubts, too (though it seems some are based on a misreading of his article).

Just as I believe surprising news Woj reports, I also believe Draper. In both cases, the reporter has earned that with me.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Here's how Deadspin describes the piece:

Our own Kevin Draper—who really should have written this for us—goes in on Yahoo scoop-machine Adrian Wojnarowski atThe New Republic. You'll read it, because Woj deserves some going-in upon.

I guess "goes in on" and "deserves some going-in upon" could be interpreted in different ways, but I don't think it's just the people who have some issues with the piece who think it's mostly a rip job. The people who are enjoying it on Twitter--or other Deadspin writers and commenters--also seem to think it's an attempted takedown. I mean, it's hardly a positive story. If it had been a neutral look at the good and bad of Woj I don't think Deadspin would regret not having the story.