As Good As Your Word

I think Sid is one of the worst journalists in the history of newspapering. Seriously. If he were a political reporter/columnist, he would be pulling checks from (likely) the GOP while writing about how the public needs to get behind a push to fully fund the brand new MN State GOP office downtown with a Hennepin County sales tax.

From the time given out by the Commercial Appeal, Glen was making calls with Memphis pretty much all night and he knew, even at the time when Sid claimed that he said what he said, that they were hopeful for a deal that would land them Miller. Somewhere between that comment (which I’d bet never happened..at least the way Sid wrote it) and the trade, the Wolves got spooked and traded their backup plan for not getting Mayo to the Heat for future considerations in a draft that they will be very active in moving up. Somewhere directly after this trade, they got a call back from Memphis and the deal was back on. Chalmers wasn’t their decision.

Most of the spin that I hear now is coming around concerning the Chalmers pick. That one was FUBAR’d by them blinking at the last minute.

Whatever the case is, the lesson here is that Sid Hartman is a hack and even if he was told something by Taylor, he needs to act as something a bit more than a stenographer. If I were running an organization (or if he were a political reporter: a campaign), I’d lie to that SOB on a 24/7 basis because he’d write it all down and there’s no Kate Parry (or ombudsman) to bug him about it….not that he’d care in the 1st place.

That being said, the FP is obviously not on the same page and they haven’t been since the get-go. Surely Papa Glen can put down a couple large for a full time PR guy in the office. A nicely drafted memo could have done a lot to make some of this nonsense go away in a hurry.

Anywho, I’d love to see someone press Sid on that quote. My gut tells me he made it up. If I were embarrassed like that in print, and I had the clout to write whatever the hell I wanted to write, I’d make damn sure to let folks know that Glen Taylor was the guy who caused the Strib to run an entire sports section that turned out to be 100% wrong the night of the trade.

the FP should be the FO

I just read Platt’s column and he may take the cake for the worst one of the entire affair. I’d hate to remind the fellow that the Wolves were playing chicken with Memphis at the time and it is their f’ing job to close the deal they want closed. He then complains that the poor, poor Strib sports section was lied to. Right. For a sports team that has done nothing but bash the incompetence of the Wolves’ FO, they sure as hell got right on the OJ bandwagon in a hurry while eagerly copying down the proceedings no better than a court stenographer. My God, the Wolves have sent out about a million signals that they wanted Love. Anyone who has ever watched more than 1 or 2 NBA Drafts know that the trades break late (sometimes after the 2nd round; sometimes after free agency starts). Yet, Grandpa Sports has to run a quote that no one else had and the Memphis Commercial Appeal waits until the next morning and gives the time line that makes sense of it all. I have no idea why Platt is protecting Sid, but this little episode is par for the course with the Strib’s sports coverage. Classless? Try clueless.

...I was listening to a podcast version of PA and Dubay Friday with Freddie and he said two things that interest me vis-a-vis Peter’s talk about Rosen’s.

1: I could have sworn that Hoiberg said to PA that the Wolves were drafting for Miami on the Chalmers pick; i.e. the trade had been done before the #34 came up. 2: While he may have cited “professional” journalists to Rosen, he told PA about how the blogs out here on the information superhighway largely liked the trade.

I’m happy with the moves they made, except for trading Chalmers, but the entire organizations was clearly unprepared to handle the public relations of Draft Night. Even if the Memphis deal happened on the turn of a dime (which I don’t really doubt), quick reaction should be in the job description of every single employee doing PR.

Sorry for the weekend silence. Apparently buying a house sucks up all your time… If someone had just told me how much work it was…

Congrats on the house.

If you think buying one takes up all your time, welcome to the wonderful world of weekend trips to Lowes. I repaired a toilet this past weekend right before tilling an old patch of hostas. Next weekend: crown molding.