ESPN ADMITS: “WE ARE TRYING TO SABOTAGE THE KNICKS”Did that headline get your attention? Good. Apparently that’s all that matters in this new digital world we’re in. Clicks and eyeballs now far outweigh journalistic integrity in importance, as “The Mothership” ESPN has now shown us these last two days.
It doesn’t matter that nobody actually said that quote, just like it doesn’t matter that ESPN has been putting words in Phil Jackson’s mouth. There are no rules anymore, I guess? Ok ESPN, we can all play that game.
Granted, I probably shouldn’t be as shocked and appalled as I am. This is New York. We know things are magnified here. We know little things turn into big things very quickly, and fires regularly burn out of control when the New York media pours gasoline on it. We expect as much.
But the media STARTING those fires? That’s a different story. That’s not the New York media doing what it does. That’s malpractice.
These last 48 hours, ESPN has committed blatant journalistic malpractice, seemingly with the intention of throwing a hand grenade into the Knicks locker room and de-railing a promising Knicks season – one of the first in a long time – and as a fan I can no longer sit by and be silent.
Let’s start with an admission: The Knicks have been generally terrible since 1999. We know this. There has been much negativity from the press, and much of it has been warranted. But since Phil Jackson got here two years ago, and since he drafted KP, there have been things to be excited about. Yet much of the New York press seemingly hasn’t gotten the memo – in particular Frank Isola of the New York Daily News, who seems to think it’s in his job description to find the negative in everything that happens and “report” things that never do, all while endlessly trolling Phil on Twitter when the chips are down, and remaining silent when they aren’t.
Much of the Knicks media is this way. There are a few that aren’t. Until recently, I thought one of those was at ESPN, but recent poorly timed but mostly benign comments from Phil about the style of Melo’s play have now been turned into a national wildfire thanks to ESPN, and I for one have had enough.
It started with this, from Phil: “Carmelo can play the role MJ and Kobe played in their teams’ triangle offenses, but Carmelo a lot of times wants to hold the ball longer than — we have a rule: If you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold it for three, four, five seconds, and then everybody comes to a stop… That is one of the things we work with. But he’s adjusted to [the triangle], he knows what he can do and he’s willing to see its success. He can play that role that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played. It’s a perfect spot for him to be in that isolated position on the weak side, because it’s an overload offense and there’s a weakside man that always has an advantage if the ball is swung.”
So Phil is saying something that NOBODY, not even the staunchest Melo supporters, disagree with – Melo sometimes holds the ball too long. In the past it has largely been because of who he’s had around him, or the fact that he gets the ball late in the clock and is forced to handle possessions himself… but whatever the reason, that statement is true.
What’s also true is that in the same interview, the same minute, Phil also compares Melo to two of the greatest players to ever play the game. Yet the headline from ESPN ignores that complimentary comparison, and focuses entirely on the negative and takes it upon themselves to take it much further, characterizing Phil’s statement this way: “Melo Working on Ball Hog Tendency, Jackson Says”
Ball Hog. One of the worst things you can call a player. And Phil DID NOT. Yet ESPN has it in their headline for an otherwise down-the-middle piece from Begley, and sure enough THAT becomes the story.
When confronted on this, Begley’s defense was “I don’t write the headlines” – a standard excuse for writers who benefit from the clicks those headlines generate, yet don’t want to take responsibility for them. Proof positive that clicks trump integrity with today’s media, and it’s not close.
Begley and/or his editors at ESPN knew damn well that “ball hog” phrase would become the story, and sure enough later that day Tim Legler of ESPN recorded a video, the title of which is “Odd timing for Phil’s ‘Ball Hog’ Comment” – a comment PHIL DID NOT MAKE.
Yet there ‘Ball Hog’ is, in QUOTATIONS, on the very same website where the headline Begley didn’t write lives.
Were Phil’s comments poorly timed? Sure. Should he have known the media would jump all over anything he said? Sure. But in this instance these guys are jumping all over things he DIDN’T say, and that, Knicks fam, is some unprofessional bull****.
Sure enough, the story quickly went national. Of course, there was Frank “Mchatin” Isola piggy-backing on the situation, tweeting about the phrase he knew damn well Phil never used.
And there was Mike Vaccaro of the post calling Phil “Anti-Melo” in a tweet (Mike’s article is otherwise on point, but that tweet was obviously very disingenuous).
All just more gas on the fire ESPN started with an incendiary headline intentionally mischaracterizing comments Phil maybe shouldn’t have made, but definitely didn’t mean the way they’re presenting them. The ESPN machine then took it from there – the awful ESPN pre-game show before the Knicks-Cavs nationally televised game spent time ONLY on Phil’s “Posse” comments before this, which is a whole other thing we can get into on another day, and Phil’s comments about Melo, and NOT AT ALL about how the Knicks had been 9-3 in their last 12, a conference best, while Melo was playing some of the best ball of his career on a team Phil essentially built from the ground up.
Call me old-fashioned, but that seems like something worth touching on when you’re a pre-game show. Might be a little more important than Jalen’s relationship with Larry Bird that literally nobody cares about, which they devoted multiple minutes to.
Then in the aftermath of a bad loss on national TV, there was the media again asking Melo himself about Phil’s comments. Marc Berman of the New York Post started it, and when Melo got annoyed and said he didn’t want to talk about it – even when Frank Isola was there like a little gnat asking yet again, trying to drive that wedge between Melo and Phil even deeper – the headline became “Melo Visibly Annoyed By Phil’s Ball Hog Remarks” – again, remarks PHIL DID NOT MAKE, ignoring the fact that Melo was clearly annoyed AT THE REPORTERS as much as anything else.
Of course Begley’s article yet again used the phrase “Ball Hog”, because it’s attention-getting. And as anyone who has seen Donald Trump brand his opponents throughout the election with nicknames, ESPN knows that this too will be a name that sticks to Melo if they use it enough, a fact you can be fairly certain isn’t lost on Melo either.
“I don’t even know what he said,” Melo said in the locker room, which was probably a lie. “I’m just focused on my teammates.” Melo did all the right things. He ignored the fake-controversy, turning his attention instead to a promising season – a season ESPN appears hell-bent on ruining.
As if all that wasn’t enough, there was Stephen A. Smith as Max Kellerman on ESPN’s “Worst Take” the next day wondering if Melo should demand a trade – again over comments Phil didn’t actually say. Smith of course said he should, insisting that he and Melo are friends (there’s simply no way SAS has any friends), and saying “Melo isn’t built for this” – meaning New York, which Melo is clearly PERFECTLY built for, as anyone who is actually paying attention and doesn’t have their head up their own ass can tell you.
“I’ve been on him to ask out of New York,” Stephen A. Smith says. And there it is. A “journalist” literally admitting that he’s trying to get the star of a franchise to leave.
So here we are. ESPN has ignited a cottage industry over comments Phil never said, spinning it all the way into a controversy that has them running entire episodes on national TV encouraging the star of a team to LEAVE THE TEAM over those very things the GM/President DID NOT ACTUALLY SAY.
That, friends, is sabotage. That, friends, is unprofessionalism.
All this while SAS – who let’s not forget ripped Phil endlessly for selecting Kristaps Porzingis, who is the no-question future of this franchise for the next 15 years – goes on to belittle the 11 championship rings Phil won in his storied career, and minimize the job Phil has done to get this previously uncompetitive team to a competitive place in a matter of two seasons.
Something sinister is at work here. I hereby call for ESPN, Ian Begley, Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman, and everyone else associated with that out-of-control company to issue a formal apology to Carmelo, and Phil, and all of my fellow long-suffering Knicks fans who have waited FAR TOO LONG for a season like the one we’re currently having.
This season means way too much to us to let the media mess with it, and I for one am not about to stand for it.
Please share this article if you agree. Please reach out to @IanBegley, and @StephenASmith, and @ESPNNewYork and @FirstTake, and let them know THIS WILL NOT STAND.
(Then give @FisolaNYDN a holler for good measure, because that guy is really the worst. One would think if an entire fan base hated you you’d start to take a long look in the mirror.)
It’s time for this “rabid, irrational fan base” as Kellerman puts it to get Melo and Phil’s backs, and BULLY UP FOR REAL.
*Disclaimer – These are the thoughts of KnicksDude and by no means reflect the voice of the website as a whole, nonetheless, we support his contributions wholeheartedly. The man has guts.*
12/9/2016 3:41 PM
