For those that missed this after the Lakers game, Kobe was asked multiple times about Fesenko,
I asked Kobe Bryant what he initially thought when Bryant’s tender right knee took that hard knee from Kyrylo Fesenko, Utah’s fledgling 7-footer who started the game Friday night.
Bryant’s answer: "Kitty cats can’t hurt me."
Fesenko later fouled Bryant on a drive and flipped the ball toward a fallen Bryant, earning a technical foul. Bryant popped up and stepped toward Fesenko but was held back by Pau Gasol.
The Lakers dominated the rest of the game, and Bryant was asked by another reporter if the situation with Fesenko ignited the Lakers’ run.
Bryant’s answer: "Teddy bears don’t ignite me."
Another reporter asked about it further, and Bryant cut it off, laughing. After he finished answering other questions, he laughed again and announced: "You guys asked me three questions on Fesenko. You’ve got to be (expletive) me!"
I'm interested in seeing what happens tonight. No word yet on whether Fesenko will get the start again. I could see Kobe going hard to the rim again though. If Fesenko is in there, it could get ugly. Fess of course exacerbated things a bit by tossing a ball at Kobe's feet after the hard foul.
I don't think we'll see Fess do anything like that again tonight, but I could see him fouling Kobe hard again if he comes inside.
So as Mark Cuban is wont to do, he's stirring up a large base by stating that "Internet reporters" should not be allowed in locker rooms. He has some points, a large part of which I disagree with.
The biggest problem I have with it is that he categorizes everyone according to their medium: TV reporters, newspapers, and "Internet reporters." That's the biggest mistake in my opinion. It shouldn't matter what medium you use to cover the team and it shouldn't matter if you get paid or not. Quality content is quality content.
He does have a point though that some people will try to stir things up or sensationalize in order to generate page views. Once again though, that's true of any medium, not just "Internet reporters."
I think he also makes a misstatement when he says that his wealthy fans only read newspapers. Maybe he means wealthy older fans? A lot of wealthy fans/consumers get their news online.
He also seems to imply that people only get their news from one source. If I read the newspaper, then I don't watch TV or read blogs/news/twitter/etc?
He also seems to think that teams should be the only ones to disseminate news about the team. That's flawed in so many ways. For one, you need reporters to report on news that the team isn't going to want to air. Despite it being just sports, these are franchises that often deeply connected and rooted within the community. When they do something, it can influence and affect everything in the local economy to politics. We need reporters in there to keep them honest.
While he has some points, the whole blog post seems to have been written because people were being critical of the Mavericks and not sugarcoating everything.
For what it's worth though, at least Cuban is consistent. In this Forbes article last year he makes mention of a lot of things including not investing in businesses that rely on page views only.
I'm a little biased as well since he's an Aggie, but I agree with Sloan and Johnson that Dick Motta should be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He made the finalist list but did not get enshrined this year. Johnson thinks that in Motta's years with all of those losses while he tried to rebuild franchises hurts his chances,
Motta's overall record of 935-1,017 refects the difficult years with the Mavs, Nuggets and Kings. It was probably held against him by some Hall of Fame voters.
"He had some tough years because he took over some bad teams," Johnson said. "So his [overall] record isn't great and they probably look at that. But it's not right. It's ridiculous."
He's ranked 11th in league history with 935 wins, had one COY award, and a league championship. He may eventually get in. That's what irks me most about HOF voting is that if someone is good enough to get in eventually, they should have been in already. They didn't come back and add more wins, hits, points, etc. So what's the difference between when they were first eligible and when they finally get selected? Nothing.
Looks like the Nets are shutting down Kris "The Hump" Humphries and could be shutting down Deron soon as well. Of course that's great news for lotto chances.
Congrats to Michael Parks for winning the SLC Dunk NCAA Tourney Challenge. He edged out Clark by 30 points. They were the only two to have UConn winning the whole thing. And my apologies to TazzJazzFan for the jinx by mentioning him last time. I have powers that I don't fully know how to use yet when it comes to jinxing/predicting.
Michael, drop my an email and I'll get a little something for you for winning.