ESPN True Hoop, good stuff. ESPN headline: “Buzz Kill: Hornets thriftiness costing team?”, not so much. For those of you that may not know, True Hoop likes to aggregate various media sources and present them all for the reader in one place. What spurred this headline? John DeShazier, who wrote in the Times Picayune:
The silence has been deafening, the inactivity telling. All we can figure is that the Hornets didn’t seriously intend to add any meaningful pieces in free agency, that their declaring a willingness to pay the luxury tax if it meant putting together a championship-caliber team was hollow. The franchise seems to have done everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t add payroll this summer. … If the Hornets can’t or won’t do what they have to do to catch the Lakers and to beat the Nuggets, Spurs, Trail Blazers, Jazz and Mavericks, then they shouldn’t sell bluster, knowing full well that fans and players are going to call them on it. The lack of activity wouldn’t be so glaring if the Hornets hadn’t gone out of their way to sell the theory that they’d move boldly, swiftly and effectively to plug their holes. Instead, the teams that really were interested in getting stronger let their wallets do the talking. They roared; the Hornets haven’t yet even mustered a whisper. Their silence if deafening, and their inactivity is telling.”
I wanted to respond by posting on ESPN, something I rarely do, but wasn’t sure if I had an account there, so here’s my retort that would have been posted there:
John DeShazier is one of the least-credible and exaggerated sportswriters in New Orleans. The fact is, the Hornets as of today, have significantly higher payrolls than the teams he mentions: Denver, San Antonio, Portland, Utah, and Dallas, as well as Cleveland and Orlando. Only Boston and LAL seem to be outspending the Hornets. New Orleans simply is standing by the team they’ve put together, which wasn’t healthy last year, and is putting trust in their draft picks. Considering they like to have 14 guys on the roster, they only have one more slot to fill. To suggest inactivity is always a negative is foolish. They easily could have hosted a firesale this summer. To their credit, they’ve realized the mistake made with Chandler last year and are trying to keep a winner together. It makes me sad that this joker somehow makes an ESPN headline. New Orleans is not “penny-pinching” by any stretch of the imagination.
Feel free to double check my numbers on HoopsHype.com. I mark New Orleans at $78M, with others at: Denver $72M, San Antonio $76M, Portland $48M, Utah $73M, Dallas $69M, Cleveland $77M, and Orlando $77M (with Boston at $79M and LAL at $84M). The fact that the national media spreads its usual ignorance by using a local sportswriter defies all reason and only perpetuates the complex feeling of persecution that New Orleanians often endure. Maybe we should stop blaming the national media if the TP writers have no clue. Or maybe the TP should hire a fucking basketball person and the rest of the country should wake up. This isn’t some kind of transcendantal realization, it’s a few minutes of research.
That’s all right. No problem. They can all suck it when Chris Paul is eating everyone’s souls next year and the media flip-flops more than Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky. This team gets it now. They know their time is now. They want vengeance. And CP, the Grief Merchant, will deliver it.
AAAAGGHH!!
Ugh. DeShazier strikes again.
DeShazier is such a fucking clown.