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Long read but interesting reddit post
Woj is one of the most influential journalists in the NBA. However, it is not new to think that Woj has symbiotic relationships with front office executives who feed him information about the daily activity of the league in return for writing positive articles even when the said team is not doing well.
A prime example of this was back in 2008-12, Wojnarowski wrote positively about the Pistons organization. Later on, it is discovered that Woj had almost unfettered access to the Pistons' President of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars. This is detailed in an article about Woj by Kevin Draper in the New Republic
The access to Joe Dumars was discovered by the NBA in a sting operation detailed in a snippet from Draper's article
In 2010, the NBA fined Dumars $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential league memos to Wojnarowski, according to multiple sources. This matches the third largest publicly known fine the league has ever handed down. The NBA decided that too many memos were making it into the media, so they conducted a sting operation over several months. They would change a few words or numbers in different team’s copies of otherwise identical memos, so that when the memos leaked they could spot the small differences and trace them back to the leaker. This approach caught Dumars red-handed, as well as an executive from another team who was fined $12,500 for leaking to a draft-focused website. Joe Dumars, the Detroit Pistons, and the NBA all declined to comment on the fine.
Between 2008 and 2012, every article about the Detroit Pistons by Adrian Wojrarowski was absolutely positive
With Detroit sliding down the standings, Wojnarowski broke nearly every significant—and insignificant—Pistons story for a half-decade: the Allen Iverson trade, the Amir Johnson trade, drafting Austin Daye, signing Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, hiring John Kuester, trading Aaron Afflalo, signing Chris Wilcox, signing Ben Wallace, drafting Greg Monroe, signing Tracy McGrady, Rip Hamilton arguing with John Kuester, drafting Brandon Knight, hiring Lawrence Frank, re-signing Tayshuan Prince, re-signing Rodney Stuckey, trading Ben Gordon, signing Josh Smith, signing Chauncey Billups, signing Brandon Jennings, signing Josh Harrellson, and firing Mo Cheeks. While Wojnarowski was busy breaking news about the team, he wasn’t busy analyzing it: Between 2008 and 2012, Wojnarowski didn’t write a negative piece about Dumars or the Pistons, despite the fact that they had transformed from a perennial contender to an also-ran. Instead, Wojnarowski penned several sympathetic profiles of Dumars, including ones that covered his completion of his college degree and another wholly about his defensive skills as a player in the 1980s.
His coverage of the Pistons was so positive, he even wrote a fluff piece on how Dumars trading for Iverson could attract Lebron to Detroit
The Pistons president doesn’t just have the salary cap space for the Cleveland Cavaliers star. He also has the connections and the championship credibility. Make no mistake: Detroit and Dumars are officially in hot pursuit of James – maybe even the favorite now – and it promises to be a long, agonizing two years for the Cavaliers.
Detroit doesn’t deliver the bright lights and global metropolis destination that James wants when he opts out of his contract in 2010, but two more years of watching Kobe Bryant win titles could transform his priorities. James wants badly to be considered the best player on the planet and that won’t happen until he’s a champion.
James wants a front office with a vision that honors his greatness, and make no mistake: This makes Detroit and Dumars so dangerous, makes them Cleveland’s worst nightmare. The city could justify losing its prodigal son to New York or Los Angeles, but nearby Detroit?
Who the **** thought the Pistons were favorite in the Lebron James sweepstakes? Woj did.
During his string of fluff pieces, it was evident that Joe Dumars gave him unrestricted access to Pistons organization. This is probably the time where Woj cultivated a lot of relationships. This includes the head coach of the Pistons, Lawrence Frank.
Yes, the current President of Basketball Operations of the Los Angeles Clippers. While you may think that it may be a stretch to connect the dots like that, here is some contrary evidence.
Last year, the Clippers made one of the most bizarre front office hires: they hired Lee Jenkins, a sports journalist as the Executive Director of Research and Indentity. As you can see in the byline, Woj broke the story. He also dropped Woj bomb (duh!) and even hosted Jenkins on his podcast. The article itself allows Lee Jenkins to plug in for the Clippers
"I grew up pulling for the Clippers on KTLA -- Gary Grant was my guy -- but it would be disingenuous to say that's why I'm doing this," Jenkins said. "I just think they're a great bet. So much about sports comes down to market and owner. They have the most attractive market in the league, and if they don't have the most committed owner, I don't know who does. I mean, who else but Steve Ballmer would do something like this? I'm constantly writing stories about teams that win, and when you trace their course back to the beginning, the end seems almost inevitable.
"The Clippers are in L.A. with Steve Ballmer and Jerry West, Doc Rivers and Lawrence Frank. They might have the best negotiator in the league in Michael Winger and two of the best evaluators in Trent Redden and Mark Hughes. They have a plan to create the ultimate environment for their players. I think it's inevitable."
In his podcast, Woj has hosted Doc Rivers, Michael Winger, Lawrence Frank, Lee Jenkins and Jerry West over the past couple years. During this time, the Clippers coverage in the news media in general has grown increasingly positive. This can be largely attributed to a string of Woj articles, plugs and a splashy tweet here and there on various ESPN platforms. This is despite the fact that LA is still Lakers town (even though Lakers did not make the playoffs for 6 years). This is despite the fact that Blake Griffin, a player with injury history, was traded unceremoniously 6 months after signing a free agent deal with them. This is despite the fact that Lebron, who wanted to come to LA went to Jeanie Buss's mom-and-pop shop over the supposedly world class organization like Clippers. And somehow, the Clippers are a free agent destination for a superstars like KD, Klay and Kawhi, all with injury history, all with some big-market ambitions. Woj pulls for the Clippers so blatantly that when he connected Klay Thompson to the Clippers, his fellow journalist at the ESPN, Nick Friedell, dismissed the rumours on The Jump this afternoon.
While there is nothing wrong with breaking stories and building relationships for journalist, it is fair to say that Woj pulls for the Clippers because he get a lot of access to the front office, to the ownership and even to coaches and players. And he pays for the access by writing extremely positive articles and building up the Clippers as the state-of-the-art world class organization and a free agent destination.
So yes, Woj is a Clippers shill.
Woj is one of the most influential journalists in the NBA. However, it is not new to think that Woj has symbiotic relationships with front office executives who feed him information about the daily activity of the league in return for writing positive articles even when the said team is not doing well.
A prime example of this was back in 2008-12, Wojnarowski wrote positively about the Pistons organization. Later on, it is discovered that Woj had almost unfettered access to the Pistons' President of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars. This is detailed in an article about Woj by Kevin Draper in the New Republic
The access to Joe Dumars was discovered by the NBA in a sting operation detailed in a snippet from Draper's article
In 2010, the NBA fined Dumars $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential league memos to Wojnarowski, according to multiple sources. This matches the third largest publicly known fine the league has ever handed down. The NBA decided that too many memos were making it into the media, so they conducted a sting operation over several months. They would change a few words or numbers in different team’s copies of otherwise identical memos, so that when the memos leaked they could spot the small differences and trace them back to the leaker. This approach caught Dumars red-handed, as well as an executive from another team who was fined $12,500 for leaking to a draft-focused website. Joe Dumars, the Detroit Pistons, and the NBA all declined to comment on the fine.
Between 2008 and 2012, every article about the Detroit Pistons by Adrian Wojrarowski was absolutely positive
With Detroit sliding down the standings, Wojnarowski broke nearly every significant—and insignificant—Pistons story for a half-decade: the Allen Iverson trade, the Amir Johnson trade, drafting Austin Daye, signing Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, hiring John Kuester, trading Aaron Afflalo, signing Chris Wilcox, signing Ben Wallace, drafting Greg Monroe, signing Tracy McGrady, Rip Hamilton arguing with John Kuester, drafting Brandon Knight, hiring Lawrence Frank, re-signing Tayshuan Prince, re-signing Rodney Stuckey, trading Ben Gordon, signing Josh Smith, signing Chauncey Billups, signing Brandon Jennings, signing Josh Harrellson, and firing Mo Cheeks. While Wojnarowski was busy breaking news about the team, he wasn’t busy analyzing it: Between 2008 and 2012, Wojnarowski didn’t write a negative piece about Dumars or the Pistons, despite the fact that they had transformed from a perennial contender to an also-ran. Instead, Wojnarowski penned several sympathetic profiles of Dumars, including ones that covered his completion of his college degree and another wholly about his defensive skills as a player in the 1980s.
His coverage of the Pistons was so positive, he even wrote a fluff piece on how Dumars trading for Iverson could attract Lebron to Detroit
The Pistons president doesn’t just have the salary cap space for the Cleveland Cavaliers star. He also has the connections and the championship credibility. Make no mistake: Detroit and Dumars are officially in hot pursuit of James – maybe even the favorite now – and it promises to be a long, agonizing two years for the Cavaliers.
Detroit doesn’t deliver the bright lights and global metropolis destination that James wants when he opts out of his contract in 2010, but two more years of watching Kobe Bryant win titles could transform his priorities. James wants badly to be considered the best player on the planet and that won’t happen until he’s a champion.
James wants a front office with a vision that honors his greatness, and make no mistake: This makes Detroit and Dumars so dangerous, makes them Cleveland’s worst nightmare. The city could justify losing its prodigal son to New York or Los Angeles, but nearby Detroit?
Who the **** thought the Pistons were favorite in the Lebron James sweepstakes? Woj did.
During his string of fluff pieces, it was evident that Joe Dumars gave him unrestricted access to Pistons organization. This is probably the time where Woj cultivated a lot of relationships. This includes the head coach of the Pistons, Lawrence Frank.
Yes, the current President of Basketball Operations of the Los Angeles Clippers. While you may think that it may be a stretch to connect the dots like that, here is some contrary evidence.
Last year, the Clippers made one of the most bizarre front office hires: they hired Lee Jenkins, a sports journalist as the Executive Director of Research and Indentity. As you can see in the byline, Woj broke the story. He also dropped Woj bomb (duh!) and even hosted Jenkins on his podcast. The article itself allows Lee Jenkins to plug in for the Clippers
"I grew up pulling for the Clippers on KTLA -- Gary Grant was my guy -- but it would be disingenuous to say that's why I'm doing this," Jenkins said. "I just think they're a great bet. So much about sports comes down to market and owner. They have the most attractive market in the league, and if they don't have the most committed owner, I don't know who does. I mean, who else but Steve Ballmer would do something like this? I'm constantly writing stories about teams that win, and when you trace their course back to the beginning, the end seems almost inevitable.
"The Clippers are in L.A. with Steve Ballmer and Jerry West, Doc Rivers and Lawrence Frank. They might have the best negotiator in the league in Michael Winger and two of the best evaluators in Trent Redden and Mark Hughes. They have a plan to create the ultimate environment for their players. I think it's inevitable."
In his podcast, Woj has hosted Doc Rivers, Michael Winger, Lawrence Frank, Lee Jenkins and Jerry West over the past couple years. During this time, the Clippers coverage in the news media in general has grown increasingly positive. This can be largely attributed to a string of Woj articles, plugs and a splashy tweet here and there on various ESPN platforms. This is despite the fact that LA is still Lakers town (even though Lakers did not make the playoffs for 6 years). This is despite the fact that Blake Griffin, a player with injury history, was traded unceremoniously 6 months after signing a free agent deal with them. This is despite the fact that Lebron, who wanted to come to LA went to Jeanie Buss's mom-and-pop shop over the supposedly world class organization like Clippers. And somehow, the Clippers are a free agent destination for a superstars like KD, Klay and Kawhi, all with injury history, all with some big-market ambitions. Woj pulls for the Clippers so blatantly that when he connected Klay Thompson to the Clippers, his fellow journalist at the ESPN, Nick Friedell, dismissed the rumours on The Jump this afternoon.
While there is nothing wrong with breaking stories and building relationships for journalist, it is fair to say that Woj pulls for the Clippers because he get a lot of access to the front office, to the ownership and even to coaches and players. And he pays for the access by writing extremely positive articles and building up the Clippers as the state-of-the-art world class organization and a free agent destination.
So yes, Woj is a Clippers shill.
