First Lady Michelle Obama tapes a “Let’s Move!” public service announcement with 2013 NBA Champion Miami Heat players LeBron James, left, and Dwyane Wade, in the Map Room of the White House, Jan. 14, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)
I no longer support the NBA or NFL and only once in a blue moon do I even watch a game. I will not subscribe to any NBA or NFL packages, and look to avoid or even disdain any advertisers who sponsor the leagues, especially those advertising during the NBA playoffs, or the Super Bowl. Both leagues have accepted and supported the radical Marxist ideology of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now even reporters are criticizing the NBA for their overly restrictive COVID-19 protocols that prevent journalists from understanding the team. Alex Reimer reports for WEEI about the Celtics:
As we rightfully begin to loosen stringent Covid-19 guidelines — the CDC recently shortened its recommended quarantine period from 10 days to five — pro sports leagues are still putting up their respective walls. Press conferences are back, but there’s a dearth of access. Reporters aren’t allowed in the locker rooms or around the players while they’re getting ready for game time. Traveling rules are tightened.
Earlier this year, Dan Shaughnessy told me he thinks the restrictions will be indefinite. “The access is never coming back,” he said. “It’s the Pentagon, it’s the White House press room. Everything is kept in-house, exactly the way teams want it. They’ll be able to use ‘abundance of caution’ to stiff-arm us forever now.”
Armed with social media accounts and in-house PR organs, leagues and players no longer feel like they need independent reporters to get their messages out. They don’t want scrubby beat writers snooping around their locker rooms, and frankly, fans don’t care either. Sports fans were screaming about fake news long before Donald Trump descended down those escalators.
But the lack of access dampens fans’ understandings of their favorite teams. The Celtics are a perfect example. With reporters now kept away, there are scant opportunities for journalists to develop actual relationships with players, and thus, get close enough with them to find out secrets. Increased access doesn’t always correlate to more information (just look at the Red Sox’ chicken and beer saga), but there’s a better chance we would know about the internal problems that plague this Celtics team if scribes were permitted to leave their press chairs.
Look no further than the 2020 NBA Bubble. The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn was in Orlando, and what would you know, he overheard a shouting match explode in the Celtics’ locker room following their Game 2 loss in the Eastern Conference Finals. We later found out Brown and Marcus Smart were the ones going back and forth.
But if Washburn wasn’t there, the verbal altercation probably would’ve remained secret.
Earlier this year, Smart publicly criticized Tatum and Brown for not distributing the ball, and then the Celtics held an unproductive players-only meeting, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. But we don’t know the actual story, outside of broad strokes. We also don’t know how Tatum, Brown and Smart interact with each other. It’s been almost two years since anybody not affiliated with the Celtics has been allowed inside their locker room.
Without first-hand accounts, we’re left with one-sided scoops from Insiders and gossip from anonymous coaches and execs. There is an information vacuum.
Our knowledge about the woebegone Celtics matches their on-court chemistry. It doesn’t exist.
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