Communication is tough. I am about the most uncheery guy you could imagine. I wouldn’t want boosters. What I want is reporters who understand enough about the game to be balanced in writing about it. I don’t see that here. There seems to be this view you can only play the game one way. The truth is there are theories of basketball and just because a guy doesn’t have yours doesn’t mean he is wrong. This goes for bringing up players too.

There’s this story about Nellie from Milwaukee. It’s probably circulated out here too. Nellie is standing around with the team broadcaster and two or three reporters. He pullls out a $100 bill and offers to the guy who can diagram one of the Bucks plays. No takers.

I just don’t think the coverage is very rational given the level of knowledge of those writing it. i am eager for someone to help me understand the game better, whether the writer is positive or negative. But I stand by my comment. This coverage is very far from balanced and right now it’s on the negative side. On sunny days, they will all be homers.

 I consider sportswriting barely journalism. If this were politics or the economy, the reporter would not directly contradict the coach. He would find another qualified person to contest the views. So, the way I see this I really don’t care if Matt or Tim or Geoff don’t like the way Nellie coaches or brings up AR. It’s just mostly a lot of noise. But there are a lot of retired coaches who would speak off the record and I would be interested in what they have to say. They have the qualififcations to speak. Most sportswriters don’t know as much as the best people writing on sites like these. And they have a lot of power to keep things stirred up, more than they deserve. Right now that power comes from questioning every move, but when the team wins they endorse most moves. How are you going to put any trust in guys like that?

I don’t put too much stock in local writers anyway. I have found them to be not very objective in my experience. Either being complete homers or hating on the area team. Many times because the guys on the team give them interviews, they give them positive press (you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours) or the opposite, no access and then the media rips them.

I don’t like that kind of stuff. I prefer to get my sports news from national sources like espn. They have some good basketball shows, or other shows sometimes touch on basketball. But yes, it is hard when ESPN hardly ever mentions the lowly Warriors this year, so not much to go off of there.

But it’s all about credibility, if you don’t trust the source, then don’t listen to them. Pretty simple. Find another outlet, a fan site like this usually has some good info on it and you can filter through the homerism that exists. I have been very satisfied with my Warriors info from watching games and reading on this forum.

Are you nuts? We’re lucky to have him. He’s one of the few guys out there that tells it like it is.

After reading Bucher’s article on ESPN, I felt bad for saying anything critical about Matt, Adams, Jenny , even Marcus. Bucher is Tim K. gone nastional, and, in fact, most of the sources for his story of Nellie’s “recurring nightmare” are from Tim. So, you have Kawakami story about a confrontation that likely didn’t happen and an interpretation of a Nellie meeting wit Randolph that is likely overblown and Bucher pastes them together and adds a little meaness to put on his old Nellie sources and bingo, an ESPN exclusive. Give me a break. I wrote Bucher when Nellie was in Dallas about some unnecessary abuse he was giving the “Nelson Boys.” He wrote back that he was so sick of those guys that it was hard for him to resist but perhaps he had gone over the top in that instance. What kills about all this is the way a non-story moves to a national vehicle and then moves back here as having great substantiation when it is the same empty vessel that left town and it began in one of Kawakami’s hysterical pieces. I wrote both Tim and the San Jose Mercury News about the lack of sources in any of Tim’s stories early in December. Because I teach journalism, I normally get the courtesy of a reply. Not so here. I don’t have a copy of the piece I wrote the News, but here is the piece I sent Tim:

You know, you seem to never feel like you need one shred of evidence for anything you say. I have followed all that you guys have written about the inner turmoil of the Warrriors. Not a quote. Not an anonymous source. Not one thing that suggests a reader should trust you. And yet you are ripping guys new assholes right and left. We know who you like. We know who you don’t like. What we don’t get is any real evidence for how you made those decisions. Inferences, yes. Evidence, never. . . .I really think it is tabloid journalism. I believe in good columns. I even believe in columns as vitriolic as yours if they are based on reporting in the news columns. I don’t see any of you guys doing that reporting.
 
It’s hard for me not to think that your campaign isn’t personal, that Nellie at one time or another, or maybe continually, looks down on your knowledge of the game and you resent it. I have corresponded with Ric Bucher about his hatred for Nellie. Otherwise, I just don’t get it. You hadn’t been in the playoffs in years. First year back, there you are. Second year back, 48 wins. And you would have been there again, if the Warriors had gone out and gotten one other guy capable of giving them 20 minutes..
 
Now they are losing. And the criticism is as constant as the pus from a staph infection. He’s playing old, he’s playing small, he’s playing the wrong young guys, he doesn’t play Marcus, and blah-blah. This is a guy who has built three franchises and won more games than almost any other coach. Yes, he is an infighter, yes he wants his guys, yes maybe he’s not loyal. That’s what Heinsohn said (though I don’t know this). But he wins. And there is absolutely no guarantee, as Warrior history proves again and again, that management will go out and get another winner if you fire him.
 
I am not asking for much, just a little evidence. You are a reporter, too, aren’t you?

All your points are taken, but I think it’s Kawakami’s job to write about all this crap, and the same goes for all the other writers, Bucher included. If you’ve been following the Bay Area sports teams as diligently as you have been with these sportswriters, than you probably wouldn’t be as critical of their work. My 49ers suck, my Raiders suck, my Giants suck, my A’s suck, and my beloved Warriors suck, and the bottom line is people want to know why. In order to know why, or at least be given some sort of explanation, sometimes these sportswriters have to take chances when writing articles and giving us their perspectives without any concrete evidence to show of. Yes, I said it, WITHOUT ANY CONCRETE EVIDENCE.

I don’t spend a whole bunch of my time following the work of these Bay Area writers because I spend the majority of my time actually watching these horrible teams play, so there’s no way I could argue with you point for point. However! I know enough to say that most of the times, these guys (and gals) turn out to be right anyway because they have their sources. That is to say, they have connections both within, and around, the different leagues. After all, these same Bay Area sportswriters were dead-on correct when they said that Norv Turner was going to leave the 49ers even after Turner had promised (verbally) that he would stay after a successful campaign as the team’s OC. These same writers also said that Barroid Bonds was an egotistical, arrogant, and selfish airhead who was a “me-first” kinda guy—it turns out they were right. These same writers were also correct in saying that Coach Eric Mussleman was losing his grip on the Warrior players during his head coaching days. They made these assertions without much supporting evidence at the time, but it turned out they were absolutely correct. “Musclehead”, as Erica Dampier put it, (oops! I meant Eric Dampier), wanted his players to toughen up, hussle, and play some god-damn defense. His players (specifically Jason Richardson and Dampier) didn’t respond, and thus he ‘lost’ the team. Richardson would later confirm that the stories of the rift he had with Coach Musslemen were all correct. I could go on some more, but the point is I listened as these writers spoke on the Razor and Mr. T show, the Murph and Mac show, and the Fitz and Brooks show, and at the time of reporting all these stories, I don’t recall them ever providing the listeners with any “concrete evidence” that included tasty quotes and soundbites. But, in the end, they were correct.

Oh yeah, in recent news, Kawakami and others have gone on record in saying (without evidence) that Chris Mullin would be out of the Warriors organization by the end of the season, or even sooner, because his views aren’t necessarily in line with the views of ownership. Are you gonna bash them for that too? Watch closely as this “source-less” story becomes reality, unfortunately…

Before I go, a couple more things: I should admit, in case you haven’t noticed, that I am biased in my response because I’m a Bay Area native, and I feel these writers have done a lot in providing me with the goods. Kawakami, Sacramento Bee’s Matt Barrows, Santa Rosa’s Press Democrat Matt Maioco, Warrior’s Beat Writer Marcus Thompson, Matt Steinmetz, and others, all provide me with the news I need to hear regarding the state of my Bay Area teams.

Lastly, I think Chacabuco said it best: “They aren’t writing for a scientific journal, [rather] they are writing for papers, websites and or magazines… [and] are paid to rely on hunches, instinct and beliefs, and you can tell when they are doing so.”

Happy Holidays to you and yours. Travel safe.