He should stick to reporting trades. Now I had to ignore twitter and forums in order to avoid his spoilers. Reporting a draft pick 2 minutes before it's made is worthless, it's just a lame spoiler. If he stuck to trades reports, it would be cool.
A big part of the problem is also people who re-post his tweets everywhere. You can sit on some forum, chat about the draft with people, in some thread that has "NO WOJ SPOILERS" in its title, and some idiots will still come in and name picks 1 minute before they happen. So it's annoying. Following a draft on a basketball forum with people who care about your team is cool, and all this spoiling diminishes the experience.
I am pretty sure Woj does that more to show off (and to spoil ESPN's "analysis") than to serve the fan base. Telling which player will be picked 20 minutes before the official announcement is not really that interesting.
Boo fricking hoo to the "he ruined a secret I was about to discover in 60 seconds" crowd. Tune him out if you MUST get the pick directly from Nate Silver's mouth. Regardless of whether you hear it from Woj or from watching the commish on TV, it's new information to everyone at least once.
Agree. It is very impressive that he has league sources inside the room that Silver is in. But let's not act like he's making draft predictions here. Chad Ford makes draft predictions. Woj reports facts (trades and draft picks) as they come into the league office. When he reports trades throughout the season or official FAgency offers given to the league, it's great because we can trust his sources. Showing off his league sources seconds before Silver makes the announcement is serving more him and his brand than it is the fan watching the draft. I'm not complaining about "Spoiling" the pick. Just trying to scale back the claims that he's a "GAWD" and such proclamations of superhuman ability to predict the future. In fact, is the OP assuming ESPN doesn't know as well before Silver makes the announcement. Since they are broadcasting Silver, they aren't going to spoiler him. But I'm sure they know as well, so they can get their graphics ready.
ESPN is obnoxious. It's pretty easy to find a long long line of people who have been burned by them. I'm not sure about their history with Woj, but I can get behind him sticking it to ESPN time and time again.
For strictly Draft purposes, Woj sucks. I hate when Twitter ruins the draft -- best thing NFL and others have done is ban people from tipping picks. There's nothing "awesome" about seeing peoples draft cards 90 seconds before they're announced and spilling it to the world. I hate that I can't open twitter during the draft or I'll have the experience ruined.
I like one thing about Woj - his trade and free agent reports. Everything else he does -- from draft spoilers to TV comments to opinion pieces -- I just usually find annoying and try to avoid. I remember some Woj article where he simply started flaming / insulting some espn journalist instead of offering well constructed criticism. I think that journalist was Hollinger. It's not something I can get behind, I think Woj is a show off who lacks class. But he is good at reporting trades and signings.
Nor can we join the Clutchfans Draft Discussion Thread, because ppl can't resist riding using Woj as their source to tell the thread before Silver does. sigh
