Killing the Messenger

What do you get when you send a glorified gossip reporter to Las Vegas to cover a party?


If you answered anything other than, "a gossip column," you're either an editor for ESPN or an idiot   the two no longer seeming so mutually exclusive.


And so we are treated to another chapter in the LeBron James saga of media saturation.  A column goes up and comes down in the course of ten hours, only to later to blow up online as another example of rampant ethical miscues that have plagued the worldwide leader since The Decision   and the fact that I can capitalize that shows just how ludicrous the situation surrounding LeBron James has become.


By all accounts, Arash Markazi did exactly what he told his editors at ESPN-LA he was going to do.  He went to the Tao nightclub in the Venetian hotel and casino and spent the night in the company of King James and his army.  Markazi, by all accounts, has a great deal of access across Las Vegas   hint, hint ESPN   and used this to go behind the ropes.


The article in question is fairly innocuous by NBA nightlife standards.  Star and entourage take up residence in VIP section of nightclub, star surrounded by legions of bodyguards and yes men, and star catered to all night by nightclub staff.  The only controversy outside of James beating Lamar Odom in a dance off (I would have thought spending that much time with the Kardashians would have him better prepared) is a one off remark from James about his preference for panty-less women acrobats, an almost universal sentiment held by twenty-five year old men I can assure you.


The article, seemingly edited and formatted for print, was down almost before it was able to be swept up by the summer's growing fascination for all things James and media conspiracy theories.  However, in pulling the article, ESPN opened itself up for a great deal more criticism than it would have received had it just let another irrelevant "after hours" piece run on one of its local affiliates.  Some in the sports blogosphere would have picked up on it, but most would have shaken the article off as another superficial glimpse into the life of a celebrity athlete who has the fame and resources to live like many of us sometimes dream we could.


Why did ESPN pull it?  Editor Rob King cited Markazi's failure to, "identify himself as a reporter or clearly state his intentions to write a story."  That certainly hasn't stopped many of the great journalists of the past (not to say Markazi's piece even belongs in the same universe as the work of Talese).  And it seems likely that Markazi, while not explicitly stating his intention to write a story, was probably not purposely vague or deceitful when speaking with James' crew about his background, and his being well known around town further casts doubt on his ability to go undercover.


So what is the problem with all of this?  It isn't necessarily ESPN's on-again-off-again relationship with journalistic ethics, since it is becoming widely known that ESPN has painted itself into a corner as both a news source and a entertainment provider.  And since ESPN has spent the summer cozying up to James, any questionable move is bound to end up, and rightfully so, the topic of the day on Deadspin or The Big Lead.


The real problem, in my mind at least, is that ESPN wants to punish a writer for doing exactly what they sent him out to do.  Markazi went to Las Vegas to spend the night partying with LeBron and write about what he saw.  When he returns with a predictable piece about fame and excess and what it is like to be the most wealthy and popular twenty-five year old on the planet set loose in the kind of town where even a unpopular, poor twenty-five year old can find himself in any number of questionable situations, the editors  feign surprise and ax the story.


ESPN is having enough trouble juggling the dual responsibilities of being the worlds largest sports news source as well as the worlds largest sports entertainment provider.  To try to juggle worlds biggest sports gossip provider as well is a recipe for disaster that is compounded when a case of cold feet gets a questionable story yanked.


A friend of mine, after reading the piece in question, asked me what the big deal was.  I didn't really have an answer.  There is nothing in Markazi's piece that we haven't heard 100 different times from TMZ or the New York Post.  The only really interesting bits are the reaction that other NBA players had to the spectacle, a simple shake of the head.  Perhaps Chuck Klosterman said it best in a tweet yesterday, "For 3 weeks, people whine about seeing too much LeBron coverage. Except when ESPN spikes a story about him. Then it becomes essential news."


For almost thirty years the people at ESPN have known exactly what they were doing, and executed the plan so effectively that ESPN has become the unquestioned leader in sports coverage.  It seems to me there are two ways to go:  ESPN gets its act together after a regrettable stretch of poor judgement, or we all see just how hard it is to be the top dog when you want to have your cake and eat it too.

LeBron, Legacy, and Letting Yourself Love Sports in the Moment

I admittedly haven't been a sports fan for long in the grand scheme of things.  If you want to trace my roots of true fandom back, you would inevitably start in the late 90's.  Those were my middle school year   the dregs of every child's development   and probably the first time I really cared about sports and a team.  I had watched sports before then, but it had always been somewhat coincidentally.  I watched the Lions play every Sunday in the fall because my father would have the game on.  I would watch golf and baseball during the spring and summer, but again, it was on TV.  Sports were something that happened in the background, and while I enjoyed going to games and watching on TV, I had no real connection.  But in the closing years of the 90's I started to become invested.  I started to switch the channel to sports, started to talk to my friends about games and players, started to develop my own identity as a fan.  Through th years that identity has grown as I have spent more and more time watching, reading, and thinking about sports.

Sometimes it feels like I have let the beast grow out of control.  Do I care too much about sports now?  Do I spend too much of my day reading college football blogs, NBA trade rumors, and Bill Simmons columns?  Sports bring me a lot of joy, but I find myself   somewhat unfairly   wanting more.  That idea of more seems to be one thing sports fans have in common.  The joy of watching sports in the moment has taken a backseat to wanting more of those moments.

After years of watching Michael Jordan lay waste to the rest of the NBA, fans clamored for the next big thing.  The league did its best to deliver, anointing young up and comers like Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway as the next big things, but it never stuck.  Michael Jordan gave every game he played in an added significance.  You felt like you were part of history when you were watching those Bulls games in the 90's because you never knew what feat might be next.  I can personally remember watching game six of the 98 NBA finals at a friends house gathered around the living room TV to watch what still may be the single most important moment of basketball I have ever witnessed.  Jordan put his team on his back, stole the ball, and with time winding down, as he dribbled the ball in the back court, everyone sensed the weight of the moment.  He drove in, pulled back, and unleashed a beautiful jump shot.  With that shot, history was made.  The man walked off the floor as arguably the greatest champion to ever play the game.

As sports fans we crave moments like this.  We want drama, we want achievement, and we want to see the greatest players exceed our expectations on the biggest stages.  It is a sick relationship really.  Half child-like reverence for larger than life heroes, half projecting our selves into these moments, living vicariously through the athletes we love because they have accomplished the things we never could.  When our heroes let us down in big moments it hurts us deeply.  We invest ourselves emotionally in the teams and players we root for, and that relationship is all too often one sided.  If you were a Lions fan when Barry Sanders prematurely retired, you felt hurt.  If you were a Supersonics fan when the team moved to Oklahoma City, you felt crushed.  And if you were a Cavaliers fan a few weeks ago when LeBron James ripped your heart out on live television, you felt angry and betrayed.  If you love a team or a player on some level, you have invested parts of yourself into them.  You've taken time to watch the games, paid money to sit in the stands (and if you were over 21, you probably paid 8 dollars for a beer), and you invested your emotions into the fate of the team.  You cheered when the won and cried when they lost.

But the relationship is largely one sided no matter how unfair it feels to the blue collar guys in the upper deck, the season ticket holders who show up every night, or the kids at home whose rooms are filled with posters and pennants.  All the love and adulation we throw at our heroes isn't in exchange for loyalty or championships.  Pro athletes owe the fans one thing and one thing only: effort.  It is hard to blame Cleveland fans for wanting more.  Feeling that they are owed loyalty from one of their own, a native son of northern Ohio.  But what is interesting when you view the LeBron saga from the outside is the reaction of fans of the NBA in general.  Fans like me.

Like most anyone who has invested themselves in sports themselves, and not just specific teams, I spend a lot of time thinking about legacy.  I read up on the history of the different leagues.  I love the stories and the significance.  The reverence you hear in the voices of interviewees on NFL network or 30 for 30 documentaries when they speak of those moments from the past that meant so much.  I get caught up in thinking and talking about how everything relates.  These debates matter to me.  They matter to a lot of people.  We spend more and more time arguing about the past and future of sports than we ever have.  Bill Simmons once proposed that these arguments mean so much to us because we always want to believe that what we are witnessing is the peak of performance.  We want today's NBA players to be "better" than yesterday's because it will validate the time we spend invested.  Nobody wants to think the best years are behind them, even if it is the best years of competition.  We naively believe that the game and players are always getting better.  And so we look to the stars of today to make that next step, to become the greats that history will remember so we can be satisfied with what we see today and look back long into the future and say, "I remember when."  We want feel like we are a part of that history.

In the last couple weeks the sports world has gotten the input of players like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson on LeBron's decision to sign with Miami and play along side Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.  Would Jordan have done it?  No.  Magic?  No.  And the reasoning seems simple.  Those guys wanted to beat each other, not hang out.  They wanted to win championships and destroy their opponents and prove to everyone that they were the best out there, and we loved them for it.  We identified with Michael Jordan's unwaivering desire to win because we the fans felt the same way.  This was the way a pro athlete was supposed to carry himself.  Jordan wanted to win above all else, and we have loved him for it.

So when someone says that LeBron "closed the book" on the debate over the greatest of all time, it hurts.  In Cleveland he was his own man, and the rise and fall of his team was almost squarely on his shoulders   I guess his and Danny Ferry's.  In New York, New Jersey, and even Chicago things would have been the same.  It would have been LeBron's team, and he could have set about trying to build a legacy that rivaled or surpassed Jordan.  If you loved LeBron you wanted him to have that chance to maximize his talents, and if you hated him you wanted to see him falter alone, with no one to blame but himself.

Miami offers none of those options.  If LeBron wins, he doesn't do it as "the guy", the shadow of Dwayne Wade obscures what could have been his achievement.  And if he loses?  Face it, this team won't lose.  They may not run off a string of 6 NBA titles (keep in mind that it could happen), but they will reach the mountaintop.  So what are we left with, as sports fans craving history.  We get to witness a potential dynasty, one which is quickly becoming akin to the nWo in terms of ire felt by opposing fans.  It will be interesting, but will it be enough?

As a long time fan of the NBA, someone who cares deeply about its history, I feel robbed of the chance to see the kind of history that I was too young to appreciate during the prime Jordan years.  However, I realize that my disappointment is no more valid than that of Cavs fans who believe that LeBron was indebted to toil away in Cleveland and deliver their city the championship that it seems may never come.  I can't allow my dreams for LeBron's legacy to seem important.  My expectations of him don't matter, only his expectations for himself.  History wasn't stolen from NBA fans like me in the same way the O'Brien trophy wasn't stolen from Cleveland.  It was never ours to begin with.  It belongs to the teams and the players.  All we can do is sit back and watch, try to savor the victories a little longer and move past the losses a little quicker. There is nothing wrong with loving your team.  Just know that your team won't always love you back.