A recent incident involving Allen Iverson is an example of one way in which the NBA is fouled up.
When Philadelphia's high-scoring guard missed a practice, coach Larry Brown had Iverson's teammates meet to discuss whether he should be benched for a game.Yeah, I always thought that was the coach's job, too, but hey, Philly is the cradle of democracy and all that. Anyway, the Sixers decided Iverson shouldn't be punished because, after all, it was the bodyguard he entrusted with the task of telling the coach he'd be absent who messed up the assignment and not Little Al. Could happen to anyone.
So the Sixers let Iverson off the hook, but that wasn't the worst part. The thing they did that really hurts was to bar media from all future practices. The reasoning was that if the nasty media hadn't been around to notice Iverson wasn't on hand, they wouldn't have asked questions, and everyone could have pretended the team's star player had been there all along.
Now keep in mind that all this happened on Brown's watch. Brown, while not cut from the same coaching cloth as, say, Pat Riley or Jerry Sloan, isn't considered a Del Harris-type either.
Iverson-Gate is just the latest example of a disturbing and annoying trend by players and, to a lesser degree the teams themselves, of fingering the media as the root of much of the NBA's evil.
And their solution is -- surprise -- to make life tough on the poor old messenger/beat writer by allowing less and less media access.
The league has rules about media access before and after games, but commissioner David Stern has left practice access up to individual teams.
What that results in, for the most part, is extremely limited access. Some teams allow media to try to grab players as they exit the locker room after practice. Others, like the Jazz, provide a whopping 15 minutes prior to practice in which players can be asked questions. Provided, of course, the players feel like talking, which they are under no obligation to do.
This hasn't always been Jazz policy. Sloan has typically been one of the league's more accommodating coaches. For years, he allowed media to attend practices and shootarounds, provided they didn't pitch pennies or shoot rubber bands at each other or otherwise distract players from his no-nonsense workouts.
As if one glare from Sloan couldn't freeze the most obnoxious media type in his tracks.
All that changed midway through last season, however, when the Jazz closed all practices to media. Rumor has it Sloan made that decision after some over-eager radio youngsters made a big deal about the coach getting on a certain player's case. This was not news, of course. That sort of thing happens all the time at NBA practice around the league. But when you've got 13 or 14 hours of talk-radio time to fill on a daily basis, you take (or make) your news where you can find it.
The Jazz's action effectively left media with game-day situations as their best chance to talk to players. NBA rules provide for a one-hour open-locker-room period before games. Sounds generous, right?
In reality, players aren't that eager to talk. They're busy getting their ankles wrapped or watching film or getting their game faces on or talking to their broker, and for most of them, the last thing they want to see is an angle-hungry reporter coming through the door.
A couple years ago I casually strolled into a locker room in search of some of that juicy access, only for a certain superstar to give me the dead-eye and say, "What the (bleep) are you doing in here?"
Hey, happy to see you, too.
After games, NBA rules state that the locker room shall be open to media no less than 15 minutes after the final buzzer. In reality, coaches open the locker room when they feel like it. The Bulls were notorious for keeping the press waiting until the players (Michael Jordan, in other words) were dressed and ready to bail. Jazz players who want to duck the media take their clothes back into the off-limits training room to dress, which explains why we read and hear so many quotes from certain players, while certain others never seem to say anything.
Who ultimately gets cheated in all this hide-and-seek media access is not the media but the fans. One way or another, stories are going to be told. If we have to quote a sixth-string point guard, or even a security guard, to fill 20 column inches, then so be it. But doing that will be far less satisfying to fans, and damaging to the NBA's public relations, than substantial access to real players.