Mark Deeks: Houston trying to dump Jeremy Lin, prioritize salary over basketball assets

If we get Dwight... then yes. If not, then you need to switch Parsons and Asik.

 

Where exactly is this dynasty you speak of? All i see is low seed playoff team that is still short of a star to just contend for a ring.

 

Both Lin and Asik are supposed to get the $15 million payment in the last year, regardless of what it counts against the cap. The huge difference between the Knicks and Rockets, were because since the Knicks were only allowed to match and would be over the luxury tax, Lin's contract in the final year would have counted towards the cap for $15 million plus luxury tax penalties, if the Knicks still had that payroll.

So they both get that 15 million in that final year, but the cap hold will still be around $8million (not counting any luxury tax penalties).

 

If we get dwight whats the point of having asik?

 

The dynasty starts when we get the other star and it is not like we don't have the cap space for it, so it is going to happen one way or the other.

I feel like 2 stars in Houston with the current supporting cast is more than enough to make the Rockets contenders, especially since the other dominant teams are at their peak/waning (Heat/Spurs).

 

Thanks to Mark for coming directly in the thread and responding to some of the (more reasonable) questions and clarifying what he was reporting.

Just as a general point, I know that "sports journalism" is treated as not a real thing (see: Chris Broussard's "multiple sources"), but in all honesty this kind of shorthand tweet-first stuff is not acceptable. Journalism has standards. I understand that there's a need to be first on the story, but there's a huge difference between tweeting a statement and linking to a more in-depth article as opposed to simply tweeting stream-of-consciousness as part of the social media cacophony.

Similarly, if you want to report something, you need at multiple, corroborating sources for that information. From what Deeks has mentioned, it looks like he only has one source (albeit probably a very good one) from someone outside of the Rockets' front office. The problem with accepting a single person's word as valid is that without any separate corroboration you risk turning yourself into a mouthpiece for whatever rumor or statement someone else wants to make without having to actually say it. For all we know, this guy's team wants Jeremy Lin but is unable or unwilling to make the first overture, so they instead leak out a "story" that Morey is shopping him around when in actuality his name never came up.

So if you have one source, then you need to say you have one source. If that source is unwilling to go on the record, then you figure out how to get him on the record (e.g. "a member of the 76ers front office" vs. "the GM of the 76ers"). If he is still unwilling to go on the record and you are unable to find a corroborating source, then objectively what you are reporting is literally hearsay. It's rumor. It's what one guy claims to have happened. And you need to clearly present it as such. "Someone in the 76ers FO says that Morey shopped J.Lin to them because he wants the cap space for Dwight" is a completely different statement than this: "Houston is trying to dump Jeremy Lin's salary, going so far as to prioritise cap relief over young basketball assets."

But perhaps it's unrealistic to expect people who want to be journalists to actually hold themselves to some sort of standards.

(I know I'm sort of raking Deeks over the coals here, but only because this is a huge pet peeve of mine in today's world of cable "news" outlets and Twitterverse rumormongering. So really I'm talking more to everyone out there than to Deeks specifically.)

 

or.. his GM source tells him "hey just got a call from morey wanting to deal lin!"

"are you kidding me?!"

"yup. they probably think beverley is better so not a big loss for them".

 

by the way, if they really DO think bev is better and that fact is now out there, then the rockets HAVE to trade Lin.

you can't go into a season, with your starting PG and fans believing that he's only starting for political reasons. if that's the case the team would be a total zoo.

this mark deeks guys probably doesn't know the ramifications of his tweet and how it could be read.

 

I personally have no issue with story from a single source. In a hypothetical D12 scenario, if a reporter reported a story from a single source who happened to be D12's agent, then I'd say the story was credible.

The thing with Mr. Deeks' tweets (as someone else pointed out earlier) was he supported his tweets with his opinion, not facts.

Rockets might have been shopping Lin, but surely there are myriad of factors being taken into consideration besides Lin's remaining $20M contract and Beverley being "bloody good" (Lin's potential vs. flaws, cap space, fit, short-term vs. long-term goals, and especially depth at the position), especially when the latter is more Mr. Deeks' own opinion and not necessarily those of the Rockets brass.

Kudos to Mr. Deeks for taking the time to interact with readers, but substituting opinion for facts/analysis is just poor/bad/lazy journalism.

 

Pleeeease! You are giving Mr. Deeks way too much credit, and not enough to Lin and the rest of us fans.

 

It doesn't matter what the source is - if you can't corroborate the story then it's not reporting. Even in your hypothetical scenario, let's say a player's agent tells you that his client wants to go to a new expansion team that is willing to overpay him, the Kansas City Chickens. You report that according to a great source, Player X wants to go to the Chickens, which then drives up his free agent price. He doesn't sign with the Chickens, but he does sign with the Nets for slightly less than the Chicken's rumored offer but definitely more than the Nets would have paid had the Chickens not joined the hunt. Then you find out later that Player X had no intention of going to the Chickens in the first place - his agent was just artificially increasing market demand to get his client more money.

At what point, as a journalist, do you have to ensure that you are reporting an actual story as opposed to being a mouthpiece for a single party? Even if the agent wasn't lying, at what point do you need to get more than one source in order to ensure that you are getting an objective take on the story as opposed to just one person's perspective?

I'm not saying that everything has to be perfect or conform to some sort of unimpeachable standard, but unless we hear otherwise, it seems pretty clear that all Deeks did was have a conversation with one person about this entire thing. As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty much on par with the Chris Broussard "tweets count as sources" school of sports journalism, or the Stephen A. Smith "imma just tell you what Melo told me to tell everyone" PR rumor mill?

 

It's a twitter post. Nobody posts pieces of journalism on twitter and you shouldn't treat twitter as a journalistic source. On the other hand, twitter is perfectly suited for information leaks like this, which by its nature will not have many corroborators.

You are free to not believe him. But many people found the information valuable without requiring the tweets to conform to additional standards.

 

So someone who the Rockets called to talk about a hypothetical Lin trade told you that the Rockets told them that they want to get rid of Jeremy Lin partly because Patrick Beverly is a much better player.

Or is this a different source?

 

Normally I'd agree with you, but Deeks himself seems to think that this is "reporting", going so far as to put his own reputation behind his source in this thread.

And, as I implied earlier in this thread, I actually believe him. I believe his source. I believe that Morey has had at least one conversation with one team about trading Jeremy Lin. But I also believe that this is not really news (because anyone who knows anything would know that everyone is on the chopping block as long as Morey can get the cap space for Dwight).

If you want to be a serious reporter and have people take your tweets seriously - as in, you don't think you will need to get into twat (yes, twat) wars with random morons on the interwebs whenever you post something they don't agree with - then you aren't allowed to have it both ways. Either you're a journalist and you are only reporting on sourced news, or you're Stephen A. Smith without as much random yelling.

 

WORD!

I'm totally fine with Jeremy being traded if it makes sense to the team. As J.R. Smith once said, basketball is basketball everywhere (although I like Houston a lot).

 

I don't know why so many people have a problem with what you tweeted.

It makes a ton of sense Morey would explore all options/opportunities at this time. Lin's contract is one that would definitely be looked at as "Man, if we could move Jeremy's contract, that would free us up to go after 'x' AND 'y'"...

But, in reading through your posts, I think you are either A) a HUGE fan of Bev's (lol) or B) a little quick to throw around things like "awesome".

The kid has played HALF of an NBA season. He's got potential, no doubt. We love his tenacity and fearlessness.

Again, it makes a TON of sense why Lin would be shopped at this time, with the current roster and potential roster and other free agents.

As you said/tweeted/reported - that is (likely) a fact. I'm guessing some of what those who are having issues with you may be that you're also expressing your (strong) opinion regarding how "awesome" Bev is. (he's got a LONG way to go to be classified as that...)

 

I see your point and agree with you for the most part. The legitimacy of a source shouldn't be confused with the credibility of said source, or that of its resulting story. In the hypothetical scenario you mentioned, if Player X's agent placed a call to Reporter Y to leak the story about signing with the Chickens, and Reporter Y wrote an article about it, then the source of Reporter Y's story would be legitimate even if there was no other collaborating source, as he heard it directly from someone "involved in the matter". However, whether the story itself was credible or not, that'd be a different story.

Having said that, I whole-heartedly agree with you when it comes to Broussard and Smith. I think that's one of the major differences that separate good journalists like Woj & Howard Beck of NYT from the rest. Another is their focus on facts, not opinion. And it is for the latter reason that I discount Mr. Deeks' tweets as the rant of a random blogger instead of a story from a legit journalist.

 

So Sham's source told him that the Rockets said (Bev is AWESOME) or the team receiving the phone thinks (Bev is AWESOME), I can't imagine the team receiving the phone call would say (Bev is AWESOME), actually I can't even imagine the Rockets saying (Bev is AWESOME).

If the statement (Bev is AWESOME) is Sham's own words then that casts aspersions into his own motivations which denigrates the news he's trying to report.

Anyways, the use of the term (Bev is AWESOME) when breaking the news made the story less believable and more Shambolic.

 

A nerve was definitely struck with this guy. Jeez lol

 

I think the statement Bev is Awesome is his opinion based on 2 things: his analysis/scouting of Bev & the fact that (apparently) Morey isn't really taking any calls on Bev.