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NBPA head Michele Roberts to loitering media: 'If you don't have a [bleeping] question, leave'
After years of dealing with questions surrounding his future in Oklahoma City, ridiculous queries about his supposedly antagonistic relationships with either Russell Westbrook or Thunder coach Scott Brooks, comparisons to Greg Oden, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James and his inability to drag an often-injured Thunder team to a championship, Kevin Durant kind of lost it over the All-Star weekend.
He didn’t blow up or even raise his voice, but following one goofball exchange after another, Durant echoed the thoughts of Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch in reminding the assembled media that he plopped himself down at a table on All-Star media day only to avoid being fined by the league. The reaction, as it usually goes with Durant, was mostly positive – rare is the All-Star media day quote that truly enlightens, and the massive scrum that occurs in this heavily-credentialed event is usually one of the more unpleasant afternoons of the year for both the players and the media.
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Asked by ESPN’s Kate Fagan about her reaction to Durant’s frustrated approach, new’ish National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts pulled no punches when discussing the day to day interactions between players and media:
"Most of the time I go to the locker room, the players are there and there are like eight or nine reporters just standing there, just staring at them," Roberts said. "And I think to myself, 'OK, so this is media availability?' If you don't have a f---ing question, leave, because it's an incredible invasion of privacy. It's a tremendous commitment that we've made to the media -- are there ways we can tone it down? Of course. It's very dangerous to suggest any limitation on media's access to players, but let's be real about some of this stuff.
"I've asked about a couple of these guys, 'Does he ask you a question?' 'Nah, he just stands there.' And when I go in there to talk to the guys, I see them trying to listen to my conversation, and I don't think that's the point of media availability. If nothing else, I would like to have a rule imposed, 'If you have a question, ask it; if you don't, leave.' Sometimes, they're waiting for the marquee players. I get that, but there is so much standing around."
This is a bit off. And though I’m a credentialed member of the media that benefits from such access, believe me when I tell you I’m not writing this just in order to defend my brethren.
If you’re waiting for the marquee players as a reporter, it’s not just because these are big stars with endorsement deals, it’s usually because they played a key role in the game that just wrapped up, or the game that’s going to take place the next day. It’s not because reporters are starstruck and only looking to talk to the famous people, it’s because quotes from the second big man off the bench don’t scan.
Most players don’t dress before games in front of the media during our 30-minute pregame window to speak with them, preferring to hang out receiving “treatment” in the trainer’s room – a room rightfully off-limits to media. They’ve bucked the system in that regard, and we completely understand why.
Following the game, you have only so much room around a player to weasel in with your notebook and recording device, and the first-come first-serve standing doesn’t just apply to who gets to ask the question, it applies to actually being able to hear what the player is saying. In the days before the NBA starts putting its stars up on podiums following playoff games, it’s pretty important to beat your man to the spot and box out. That usually means standing around, waiting on key players to show up.
There is also a pecking order to who gets to ask what, and when. This first questions usually come from beat reporters that are not only on deadline, but there for every game and practice with a particular team in ways that encroaching general columnists are not. Those beat reporters, deservedly, get the first shot – and the responses from the players in question are usually enough to fill your notebook and/or column with. A dozen reporters’ columns or gamers for that night can be ably perched on top of the quotes taken from just three or four questions from three or four reporters.
Why? Because NBA players rarely say anything significant after games. For good reason.
That’s not to call them lunkheaded jocks, they’re not. There’s just not enough juice to go around in what could be an eight-month season. Even if there was significant tension below the surface, as is likely the case with the since-suspended Dallas Mavericks guard Rajon Rondo, look at the useless bits he gave the media on Tuesday night following his altercation with Mavs coach Rick Carlisle:
"Discuss with Rick.”
You think that’s all Rondo wants to say? Hell no. You think he’s incapable of going to great lengths to articulate his thoughts, even without falling victim to anger? Of course not: Rondo’s a smart dude.
He’s not going to jeopardize even his new team’s season, despite his obvious anger, just for one day’s worth of fish and chip paper. Few players would. First-hand quotes are needed in this realm, both for print and online publications, but the overwhelming majority of on-record quotes regarding a particular game just aren’t all that compelling.
Even with this in place, for Roberts to characterize a healthy chunk of media as merely “standing around” is incredibly bogus, and misleading.
Reporters have to wait for certain players to show up, and they’re not going to duck out of the locker room while the 12th man dresses and just hope that when they return five minutes later that Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and LeBron James will be ready to go. Reporters have to wait, and sometimes that means standing around and not asking questions.
Just because some reporters don’t as “a [bleeping] question,” it doesn’t mean they’re not working – it’s usually because the needed amount of bland pablum the athlete just provided for a column was already worked over by the initial three or four questions, and there’s no real need to dive in to secure yet another round of athlete autospeak. NBA fans can catch up on this when the league starts televising its postgame podium conferences during the playoffs – maybe one in five media attendees will ask an actual question, but really what more is there to say? All of us, players and media, are taking this one game at a time.
Understand that we don’t like this, either.
The last thing I want to do, while wearing a blazer and jeans, is stick around in a sweaty, steamy locker room for longer than I have to. I want nothing to do with making a player, versed in it though they may be, uncomfortable as he changes back into clothes following a game. LeBron James has to employ a security team to keep goofballs away even if he just wants to go down to a chain restaurant to grab some wings and beers and watch the NCAA Tournament. The fact that any credentialed media, myself included, can just stand there with a smartphone in hand while he emerges from a shower and changes into clothes is absolutely ridiculous. All media understands this.
The problem is that, even if you aren’t getting your scores and stories from the next morning’s paper, is that the beat reporters that do the bulk of the work for all of us still have overnight deadlines, and they need to file a story as soon as possible. Even if you get that night’s juiciest quote from a reporter’s Twitter feed, that’s only because they’re busting their tail to dive into that stuffy locker room to be there to catch it. The locker room system is flawed and archaic, but it’s still there for a reason.
Michele Roberts has a lot on her plate, as she attempts to make up for the terrible and reportedly corrupt work done by her predecessor at the NBPA, and in so many ways she is the perfect director to help lead these players through the labor struggles that await. She will be fantastic in her role as NBPA head.
She missed the ball on this one, though.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
