Post#2159 » by One_and_Done » Sun Jun 15, 2025 10:31 pm
I think a lot of fans don’t understand how the media works. Generally, there are two extremes for front offices, in terms of their relationships with the media.
On one end of the spectrum, you have teams like the Spurs and Thunder. Nothing leaks out of these teams, and the local media basically work as a team with the organisation to put out favourable coverage. When you see a story from local reporters about the team, you know it’s one that the front office put out there. Look at how long the Spurs kept the Kawhi problems under wraps.
These organisations all tend to be small markets, and play out West. The loyalty of the media is driven by the fact that the team is the only game in town, and the owner of the media company usually has a close relationship with the owner of the team. There’s a civic pride factor as well, of “this is our towns one team, and we’re all behind it”. On the organisation side, it also makes no sense to leak, because when you work for an organisation like San Antonio or the Thunder, you are going to be poached eventually (with that organisations blessing), and become part of their coaching/exec tree. Why would you risk that to try and get good coverage by a journalist? It’d be crazy.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are markets where everything leaks, like the Knicks. These organisations tend to be in the East, whose media is bigger than the team, and have dysfunctional owners that appoint nepotistic hires into the front office. These nepo-hires compete with each other for the ear of the interfering owner, and try to build up their own fiefdoms in the organisation. To that end, it makes sense to leak how another rivals fiefdom supposedly screwed up something. Because everyone is leaking, it’s hard to figure out who leaked what, and the owner has loyalties that mean the GM can’t just sack the people he doesn’t trust. In San Antonio or OKC, if the lead decision maker doesn’t trust you, then you’re gone. In these big, Eastern sieves, the GM is often a rival to these entrenched buddies of the owner. The biggest challenge of being the Orlando GM? You have to work with Alex “the snake” Martins, who has been there for decades and is basically the shadow GM.
That brings us back to this situation. KD is leaking through Shams who he won’t extend with. That’s to let those teams know not to bother trading for him (which will make them lower their offers, which in turn will mean the Suns won’t trade him there because the offers will suck). The Suns are leaking through their man Gambo that everything is going to be great, and they have something wonderful lined up, to get an early start on PR control with the fans, and in a doomed attempt to create leverage with the far superior organisations they’re stuck negotiating with (SA, Miami, and Houston). The Spurs are leaking to their fans that Sochan isn’t in the deal, and nor is Castle or the #2, and all they’re offering is guys like Vassell/Barnes/Keldon, and have told Sochan he isn’t getting traded (which is why he’s confidently trolling everyone on social media). That’s where things stands now. Basically anything Gambo says is spoon fed by the Suns PR, in exchange for him continuing to get favourable access.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
