The Great New York Brown-out
Score one for old-fashioned print journalism, sort of. If you've heard within the last few hours that Larry Brown has been fired by the Knicks - not bought-out, not offered his resignation, but flat-out fired - that Isiah Thomas is replacing him and that the Knicks are refusing to pay Brown, you might have run for a TV if there was one nearby. However, if you turned on ESPN News, you'd catch only an update from a Knicks beat writer from a New York paper at the top and bottom of each hour, with the usual highlights package running the rest of the half-hour. Meanwhile, the other two big networks on the worldwide leader has World Cup soccer. Fair enough; the U.S. is playing, after all (and losing).
Thank goodness, then, for NBA TV. Oops, maybe not. There, you're getting more WNBA highlights than you could ever want in life. The crawl underneath informs us that - are you ready, are you sitting down - Miami won the NBA title and Dwyane Wade was the MVP. Can we cut to the studio or something, get some info, a little analysis, throw us a friggin' bone? It's the NBA's network, it's one of the flagship franchises, it's right down the street from the league office. OK, now there's a Brown item on the crawl, very bare-bones. Still, not a good showing so far.
So, where to go for info? The sites of the New York papers. Here's the Daily News story. Here's the Times story. Here's our sister paper, Newsday. Sorry, the Post only has the wire story. But in their defense, the guy talking on ESPN News was, in fact, the Post's Knicks writer. So that's one in their favor. And all three sites were reporting in this morning's papers that something was going to happen soon.
Meanwhile, speaking of the worldwide leader, as of right now, the website only has the wire story so far, too.
Final from Germany: U.S. loses 2-1. You know, the No. 5 team in the world, the ones getting so disrespected by everybody, the ones who were gonna show everybody they were for real. They got exactly one goal on their own in three games (the other was an Italy own-goal) and are done. If the U.S. had just gone over there and played and lost, instead of talking so much smack, this wouldn't look nearly as bad as it does.
Suggested headline: Going, going, Ghana. You're welcome.
Comments
Looks like ESPN.com took your advice on that headline...
Posted by: Chris | June 22, 2006 5:40 PM
The Knicks blow and thank god ESPN didn't interrupt a live match for a team that finished in last place firing their coach. That's the beauty of soccer lost on Americans. No commercials. Or do you want to see the GEICO gekko 5 times an hour? Also most of the smack about the US team was generated by the media and not the team. The media kept touting 2002 quarterfinal run but the US fell backwards into the knock-out round after Korea saved them with a meaningless goal (for Korea) against Portugal. What was the US doing? Getting pounded by Poland 3-1. The US beat Mexico to reach the quarters. In games outside of Mexico recent history shows the US usually beats Mexico. Ghana is a strong team. If any team in this group really choked it was the Czechs. Most knowledgable soccer fans knew the US would not make it out of this group. As for the Italy game, great resolve by the US players and a terrible outing by the Azzuri playing down to the American level. Hence a draw. And the red cards were legit. Cleats high tackles merit red cards. Steele stick with basketball. You obvioulsy know nothing about soccer.
Posted by: Rob S | June 22, 2006 5:48 PM