The Issue With the Knicks' Introduction of Jalen Brunson
Last night, as one journalism debate raged its way through the NBA Twittersphere, I found myself temporarily fixated on a completely separate media story of far more importance.
On Wednesday, The Austin American-Statesman, the daily newspaper in Texas’s capital, opted to publish a Spanish-language version of the Texas House committee’s 77-page report on the Robb Elementary School shooting that killed 19 children and two adults in Uvalde. The newspaper gathered a number of Spanish-speaking journalists to translate the document, which had been released in English by the state house earlier in the week. The Statesman is printing 10,000 Spanish-language copies of the report—which can be found here online—an incredible act of service journalism for the Uvalde community, of which half of the residents five years or older speak a language other than English at home, according to Census data.
No one would or should conflate the fact-finding mission in Uvalde with coverage of professional basketball, and I won’t either. But as I read about The Statesman’s act, it left me feeling grateful that, for all the complaints about the news media that exist, outlets can still do incredibly meaningful work that makes people, or specific groups of people, more informed. And that’s something we should all want with things we take a deep interest in.
On some level, that’s why I struggle with the tone of the conversation as it relates to the New York Knicks and their decision to hold a press-free introduction for recent free-agent signing Jalen Brunson, who marks their biggest pickup at the point-guard spot in more than a decade. The team didn’t invite its every-day media—which covers the club—to the event, which was instead held for season-ticket holders and led by MSG Network host Bill Pidto. And judging from Twitter, the social-media platform I use most, the majority of the team’s fans there either agree with the Knicks’ choice, or don’t care much about the media having been held out of it.
In having covered the league for 10 years now—and having formerly written about the Knicks for The Wall Street Journal for about half that time—I’ve learned that different factions all want decidedly different things. Journalists will understandably always want more and better access to the players and teams they cover. In the ever-changing media world—which features in-house networks, The Players’ Tribune and athletes utilizing their own social media—NBA teams will often want to handle things more on their own terms, with more curating and less scrutiny. Fans understandably want to cheer for a winning basketball club.
What I don’t understand, though, is why a fan would advocate for less independent coverage of his or her favorite team.
Andy Marlin/USA TODAY Sports
To be clear: I fully get that the fanbase is tired of feeling like a punching bag in the media after suffering more losses than any team since 2001–02. The question of whether Brunson’s contract with New York is a vast overpay—despite it being perfectly in line with a starting floor general’s salary—dominates the airwaves, even though almost no one would have batted an eyelash had the same deal been given to him by the Mavericks or another franchise. Fans are tired of feeling like the incremental developments that happen within the team—RJ Barrett having a breakout showing on national TV, or the club finally being prudent by stockpiling picks instead of giving them away like in the past—get ignored or skewered on occasion. They were annoyed back in 2015, when The New York Times decided the listless Knicks weren’t worth covering for the rest of that season and instead traveled the globe in search of more compelling basketball. They were tired of repeatedly seeing the kid who cried when the team drafted Kristaps Porzingis. They’re tired of seeing things blow up in the Nets’ faces, while still receiving more media scrutiny than their Brooklyn counterparts.
I get all of that. There’s a certain weight that comes with being the focal point in the nation’s biggest media market. Even with teams like the Yankees, or the Giants and Jets—who play in the country’s most-watched league, you could make the argument that the Knicks are the most popular one in New York City. Aside from it being a town that catches fire when basketball is relevant, the Knicks don’t have real, true competition for attention in their market. Even after the Nets landed James Harden in 2021 (on top of having gotten Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving), they had to offer discounts for playoff tickets in an effort to sell those games out.
The beauty of New York being such a massive market—or the frustration of it, depending on how you look at things—is that it provides an abundance of media sources to choose from. Most clubs have two or three reporters covering the team both at home and away. For decades now, the Knicks have always been closer to double or triple that, sometimes more. With that many people on the beat, naturally people are going to approach the job differently. Some, like respected, longtime beat reporter Ian Begley, are going to take a down-the-middle, fact-based approach. When I took over the gig at The Wall Street Journal, I remember thinking that fans would have no reason to read my work if I wrote the same way as the six or seven more-tenured people covering the team. So I sought to use a more analytical and film-based approach. (Fred Katz, from The Athletic, currently utilizes a similar style to this.)
And it goes without saying that the city has a pair of tabloids that, every now and then, make waves with their content. But again: people have a much broader choice in New York as to where they get their coverage from. They can simply ignore the content they don’t enjoy or feel like they get much out of.
Fans ignoring content they don’t like is fundamentally different than supporting a team’s decision to hold reporters out of events they’ve traditionally been able to attend. And to be clear, Wednesday’s event was not the first where access has been reduced to cut reporters out. At the end of the season, reporters weren’t invited to attend the team’s exit interviews. (Although coach Tom Thibodeau did give an extended interview at the conclusion of the team’s season that, in a way, served as one from his end.) Team president Leon Rose, who was introduced without a press conference upon joining the team back in March 2020, opted against speaking to the team’s writers this season and, similar to the Brunson event, instead opted to do a season-ending talk with the club’s broadcast team that aired on MSG Network. Prior to Rose’s hiring, back in 2019, the Knicks were fined for not inviting the New York Daily News to their post-draft news conference in which Barrett was introduced. And none of this even gets into the deeper, more acrimonious relationship between the club’s public relations staff and the reporters that covered the team back during the early- to mid-2000s.
When I covered the team from 2012 to 2016, I experienced occasional frustrations just trying to do my job, like anyone does. In one particular case, I remember being told one thing regarding a player by someone in the public relations department, only for that information to be proven false later on that evening. When I asked why the person misled me, I was told in response: “I work for the Knicks, and my job is to protect the Knicks and their players.”
Whatever anyone makes of a comment like that, a reporter’s job, in my opinion, is to inform. Sometimes, that comes from trying to clarify a timeline on when free-agent negotiations began. (Sidenote: (It would have been fully possible to introduce Brunson to the media while finding ways to sidestep questions about Donovan Mitchell or possible tampering.) Sometimes, it’s to get a sense of whether someone is or has been playing hurt. Other times, it’s to understand a mindset at a particular moment of a game, or a defensive coverage. In some cases, it’s to write an illuminating feature that allows fans to understand a player or coach’s life more fully—something I know firsthand Knicks fans want. (And given the fact that Madison Square Garden hasn’t paid property taxes in New York in almost 40 years, one could argue that fans, and the media, are entitled to know and understand more about the team rather than less.)
My own experience as it relates to the Knicks shines a light on how deeply people care about this team. When I was on the beat, I wrote bizarre stories, examining why the team didn’t have its best free-throw shooter take technical-foul shots. I analyzed why Tyson Chandler kept getting sick every season. How Carmelo Anthony learned to play chess in his late 20s. Why all the players kept getting injured on the left side of their bodies. How Cole Aldrich either seemed to airball or make every one of his hook shots, with no in-between. And the only reason I was able to write those things is because I had the access to take those gambles, and then readers clicked on them enough to justify me taking more gambles like that. Earlier this year, I had a book about the 1990s Knicks—a team that never won a championship—hit the New York Times best-seller list as a first-time author. The common denominator with all those things fans have been willing to read: Despite all the losing, people love this franchise. And I have no doubt they want to know more about the players and people that represent it.
Whether fans liked my work or preferred a different flavor of reporting, it’s a good thing to have a variety of choices—not only for the reporters’ coverage, but also for the legion of fans who’ve used some of that material and become talented bloggers and podcasters in recent years. If beat-writer access further diminishes in New York, it can eventually happen everywhere else, too, which would mean less independent reporting throughout the league and translate to less-informed fanbases for a sport that’s only growing.
Even if you only make a point to regularly read one beat reporter that you like, ask yourself: why would you want that reporter to have less independent material to work with if you want to know and better understand the team you follow? Why would anyone want that? We’d all be worse for it.
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