Interesting discussions that went towards some inside baseball on the reporting aspects. I have 0 care for the Lakers, so I'll never read that book but I might check out what else Yaron has written.
Ethan, I feel like your previous podcast shtick of you playing dumb and tossing out crazy questions to experts about football, golf, etc. could be used for being a reporter. I'm always fascinated by this "off-the-record" versus "on-the-record" type of interaction that Yaron was dancing around. What the writer knows but can't put on record versus when a writer is just bullshitting. What the interactions are away from press conferences or locker rooms. How the PR folks function as lubricant versus adhesive between the talent and the writer. How are the media lunches and how weird is it to have your tickets be complimentary (I assume they are) and how adversarial can teams be to outlets. Just lots of basic questions like that. Maybe it would do better if a rube was asking you those questions instead of you pretending not to know and asking someone else.
Part of this was spurred by Tim MacMahon's latest piece about the Mavericks ousting of Nico and Cuban being back in the light. MacMahon had a line in his article that Cuban did not provide comment and Nico did not either. Fair enough, I guess, but I highly doubt Cuban didn't provide MacMahon with insight given how Ethan dropped a nugget about how often Cuban has contacted him. The line in MacMahon's article felt like a bit of sleight of hand, making the reader think Nico/Cuban had no input here when I now highly doubt it.
— I can NOT wait for LeBron to leave the team. Time to move on. And I like him less than I did before he joined my favorite squad. Great call on just the general weirdness of the Qing x LAL run.
— I’m Happy Jeanie and the fam sold the team. Dr. Buss was the best to do it, but I’d rather bet on Mark Walter than the doc’s kids to drive future success.
Interesting discussions that went towards some inside baseball on the reporting aspects. I have 0 care for the Lakers, so I'll never read that book but I might check out what else Yaron has written.
Ethan, I feel like your previous podcast shtick of you playing dumb and tossing out crazy questions to experts about football, golf, etc. could be used for being a reporter. I'm always fascinated by this "off-the-record" versus "on-the-record" type of interaction that Yaron was dancing around. What the writer knows but can't put on record versus when a writer is just bullshitting. What the interactions are away from press conferences or locker rooms. How the PR folks function as lubricant versus adhesive between the talent and the writer. How are the media lunches and how weird is it to have your tickets be complimentary (I assume they are) and how adversarial can teams be to outlets. Just lots of basic questions like that. Maybe it would do better if a rube was asking you those questions instead of you pretending not to know and asking someone else.
Part of this was spurred by Tim MacMahon's latest piece about the Mavericks ousting of Nico and Cuban being back in the light. MacMahon had a line in his article that Cuban did not provide comment and Nico did not either. Fair enough, I guess, but I highly doubt Cuban didn't provide MacMahon with insight given how Ethan dropped a nugget about how often Cuban has contacted him. The line in MacMahon's article felt like a bit of sleight of hand, making the reader think Nico/Cuban had no input here when I now highly doubt it.
Great podcast! More hoops!
Very enjoyable pod.
Few quick things from a lifelong LAL fan:
— I can NOT wait for LeBron to leave the team. Time to move on. And I like him less than I did before he joined my favorite squad. Great call on just the general weirdness of the Qing x LAL run.
— I’m Happy Jeanie and the fam sold the team. Dr. Buss was the best to do it, but I’d rather bet on Mark Walter than the doc’s kids to drive future success.
Cheers