OKC media vs. OKC Thunder

[JackReacher]

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 **** Off Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant? «

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

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

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I just became a Reggie Jackson fan.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

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.

 

[PTOWN]

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.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Yeah, that was a great article.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Westbrook seems to be a real winner.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

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.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

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.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

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

 

[Alma]

Westbrook seems to be a real winner.

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.

 

[Steak Snabler]

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.

 

[Alma]

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.

Yeah, well, no.

 

[Joe Williams]

It's a rube approach, thinking they'll attract free agents by minimizing their media contact. Where does that rank among any confident/cocky athlete's priorities when choosing a team? And even for Durant, Westbrook and the rest, do they think those guys would fret about stepping into the media cauldron of Washington or NY or wherever if the money, supporting casts, endorsements, lifestyle, etc., were right?

Don't get too high on Reggie Jackson off that one anecdote about the chair, either. During last year's playoffs, I was told in detail by an NBA-covering pal that after a big game, Jackson made reporters needlessly wait until he was just about the last guy exiting the locker room. He could have done a quick 2-3 minutes but he let the small crowd fighting deadline after a long TV game wait at his locker while he did the whole "loiter and look down with his feet in the ice bath, shower slow, b.s. with teammates, lotionize, fiddle with the jewelry, get his headphones just so" thing before finally acknowledging them. Burned close to a half hour they didn't really have at that point.

Young guys learn that crap from their teams' entitled and indulged stars. And from the PR staffs that are supposed to raise them right. Then they emulate it, take it to their future teams and it spreads.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

It's a rube approach, thinking they'll attract free agents by minimizing their media contact. Where does that rank among any confident/cocky athlete's priorities when choosing a team? And even for Durant, Westbrook and the rest, do they think those guys would fret about stepping into the media cauldron of Washington or NY or wherever if the money, supporting casts, endorsements, lifestyle, etc., were right?

Don't get too high on Reggie Jackson off that one anecdote about the chair, either. During last year's playoffs, I was told in detail by an NBA-covering pal that after a big game, Jackson made reporters needlessly wait until he was just about the last guy exiting the locker room. He could have done a quick 2-3 minutes but he let the small crowd fighting deadline after a long TV game wait at his locker while he did the whole "loiter and look down with his feet in the ice bath, shower slow, b.s. with teammates, lotionize, fiddle with the jewelry, get his headphones just so" thing before finally acknowledging them. Burned close to a half hour they didn't really have at that point.

Young guys learn that crap from their teams' entitled and indulged stars. And from the PR staffs that are supposed to raise them right. Then they emulate it, take it to their future teams and it spreads.

Yeah, that kind of diva behavior always annoyed me. The list of players who do this is a long, long one... Also, a player who jumps to a reporter's defense when someone is giving them grief, completely trumps a guy who takes forever to get dressed after a game.

 

[Alma]

PR staffs that are supposed to raise them right.

That used to be true. Used to be. Coaches and athletes make so much money now that media relations staffs mostly exist to bend themselves around the coaches and players' narrow, often mercurial worldviews so they can keep their jobs. Good people who rarely have much of a voice in the way things are done and are respected only half of the time.

True "PR," anymore, is done by the in-house media or a marketing staff that arranges charity events, fan meet-and-greets, etc.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

That used to be true. Used to be. Coaches and athletes make so much money now that media relations staffs mostly exist to bend themselves around the coaches and players' narrow, often mercurial worldviews so they can keep their jobs. Good people who rarely have much of a voice in the way things are done and are respected only half of the time.

True "PR," anymore, is done by the in-house media or a marketing staff that arranges charity events, fan meet-and-greets, etc.

It's interesting. There is so much access in NBA, NFL and baseball locker rooms (Can't speak for hockey) compared to colleges, so it's a lot more obvious when a guy is ducking the media as opposed to colleges where sometimes a top player might not speak at all or you might get him occasionally sitting next to his HC at a press conference. I covered a Heisman candidate who they wouldn't let talk for three weeks in a row. They can't do that in the pros. Most of it is on the player and it's a very rare case these days where the PR staff would try to persuade a guy to talk and if they do, it's usually for someone other than the local guys.

 

[JackReacher]

"The fodder for those who would paint Westbrook as a jerk comes day after day. He's not exactly a social butterfly. He's not desperate for your approval. He's not going to beg you to like him. He is what he is, always, at all times. Take it or leave it."

The Thunder's Russell Westbrook is comfortable with who he is. - Oklahoma City Thunder Blog - ESPN

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

"The fodder for those who would paint Westbrook as a jerk comes day after day. He's not exactly a social butterfly. He's not desperate for your approval. He's not going to beg you to like him. He is what he is, always, at all times. Take it or leave it."

The Thunder's Russell Westbrook is comfortable with who he is. - Oklahoma City Thunder Blog - ESPN

I understand the players who don't like to talk or are private and don't trust the media. The ones I'm most interested in are guys like Durant, who spend some time as a media darling and they they turn. I think we're seeing more and more of that these days, athletes who feel betrayed by the media.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Betrayed = Criticized once or twice after a lifetime of adulation. Everybody's got to learn people are fickle sometime.