[Rant Sports] James Harden Needs To Improve His Relationship With Media by*John Raffel

That's not really true either.

The NBA and the media have a symbiotic relationship.

The NBA provides the entertainment, the Media provides the access and publicity which fuels the fan base who pay the bills.

It's not an accident that Stern fined Pops $250K for sitting Duncan, Ginobli, Green and Parker during a televised game. Or that the NBA fines players for skipping interviews if they make a habit of it.

Good NBA basketball requires a healthy league, and a healthy league requires money to pay the players and finance the teams. That means they need publicity and the media. It's why the media rarely calls out the refs or the NBA head office. They scratch each other on the back, and while frustrating at times, it's what makes the NBA a viable professional league.

Harden has a job to do on the court, but so do the Reporters. They have to make a living too, and part of that is talking to the players for their inevitable post-game interviews.

So, regardless of Harden's personal feelings, he has responsibilities as a public athlete. One of those responsibilities is to make himself reasonably accessible to the media, especially as a high profile Star that disproportionately represents the NBA brand.

If Harden wants the benefits that go with being a NBA star, the sponsorships, the merchandising, and paid appearances, then it cuts both ways... ie, he needs to be accessible to the fans through the media.

And as someone said before, if you're man enough to take the glory when things go well, then you should be man enough to take the hits when it doesn't.

What Harden did was fundamentally immature. Hopefully he doesn't make a habit of it.

 

who the **** is John Raffel? Doesn't sound like a journalist. Sounds like a blogger.

 

Guys, this is not a reliable journalistic source. Hold off on the torches and pitchforks. Who the hell even is John Raffel? Never heard of him.

 

Harden doesn't need to talk to the media after each game if he doesn't feel like to. All we should care is he performs well during each game.

 

John Raffel, professional sports writer
United States
Big Rapids, MI
Resume/C.V.

I have been a professional sports writer for 36 years. I currently am a sportswriter for a daily newspaper in west-central Michigan. I also am the outdoor editor for this paper, The Pioneer, and for another paper we own, the Manistee News-Advocate.

I have free-lanced for several publications and websites including SportzDetroit, Michigan Hockey Magazine, Spartan Magazine of Michigan State University, The Clare Sentinel, All Headline News and Redline Editorial.

I also have extensive photography skills. Over the years, I have received numerous writing awards from The Associated Press and Michigan Press Association.

https://www.elance.com/s/johnraffel/resume/

Professional sports journalist who has done work with the Associate Press and multiple regional papers.

Not a blogger.

 

You whiny nitpickers will use any vague and presumptuous article to dog our team's best player.

Seriously, blogger or not, the quoted bit ends by maligning James by saying that his actions tell us so much about him on and off the court. Oh really? So he's a Pacman Jones now? What an ambiguous, lazy thing to write.

 

Uh, wow. Didn't ask for a CV, but thanks. I should stop attempting to be sarcastic on the Internet. For all that journalistic experience.... that was the best he could come up with?

What a shame.

 

Actually it just reinforced my knowledge of who the Harden haters are, they are usually the ones that are first in line to dog him and some made their appearance.

Exactly... but people already had their preconceived notion about him before he even put on a Rockets uniform.

 

I just can't believe anybody actually pays attention to these post game interviews. If you have no investment [other than your free time] in this team, why pay attention to anything outside of the game itself

 

Insight. Again, a post-game interview shows a lot of character into an athlete. You also get their thoughts on the game.

Roberto Luongo went and did an entire TV show segment on Hockey Night In Canada after losing his starting goaltender job. Much better athletes have done them after much tougher losses. Every athlete has to do it, Harden is NO EXCEPTION. The fact that a specific sect of people on this forum do not understand that fact speaks volumes about their general IQ. Every athlete has to do it, Harden is NO EXCEPTION:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyLm3BpW1mg

 

You were the guy saying Monta Ellis was just as good as James Harden and that his buzzer beater proved that, its speaks volumes to your general IQ.

 

-s on its

 

I guess it must be nice to be a player making max money. You can once in a while blow off certain job duties that you don't like to do that your other teammates probably can't get away with.

Sorry if I don't any empathy for this situation. I certainly can't shirk any responsibilities at my job no matter how upset I might be at the moment. But hey, it must be hell having to answer some questions about a game where you're getting paid $80, right?

 

Corrected.

 

I didn't know this was such a big deal.

Feel bad for Harden, so many haters and no legion of protectors.

 

I didn't like that Harden skipped out on facing the media after a bad loss that was important to playoff seeding. Doesn't mean I hate Harden. I'm still a fan of his but I hope he matures and learns to accept this responsibility instead of leaving it for his teammates, especially since he is the superstar of the team and a superstar has always has an important leadership role.

 

Oh clutchfans...

I guess, food for thought, Asik frequently runs from the lockerroom before interviews swarm in. So I suppose he's shirking his duties as well.

 

Instead of constantly asking the players why they keep getting off to a bad start, they need to ask the coaches and call them out on why the team is not prepared at the beginning of games. Quit being politically correct when talking to the coaches and make them accountable for the bad starts.

 

Pet peeve with the journalists who ask questions at postgames/practice, they always phrase their questions in a way that results in the most generic canned answer possible, and half of the time they answer it themselves. "Will you use this tough loss as motivation to bounce back?," "Is this one of those games where you can hopefully say this was a wake up call?"