Locker Room Lockout?

Mark Cuban is a horse of a different color.  He isn’t merely the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.  He’s an outspoken NBA owner, actor, dancer (with “The Stars”) and blogger.  He knows how to get his voice heard.

Cuban, the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, thinks that
Internet reports should be banished from NBA locker rooms

Right now, sports fans are listening to Cuban’s latest complaint from his personal blog: that journalists (particularly “Internet reporters”) should be kept out of the locker room.  However, his idea is as absurd as playing basketball without…well…a basketball.  His logic doesn’t quite add up.  In his blog post from April 4, Cuban explains:

I think we have finally reached a point where not only can we communicate any and all factual information from our players and team directly to our fans and customers as effectively as any big sports website…I think those websites have become the equivalent of paparazzi rather than reporters.

Cuban says that Internet reporters are more interested in bolstering their page view numbers than actually providing valuable content, which can lead to blogs focused on rumors and off-court drama.  Cuban even turned to CNN to present his case:  

In his blog, Cuban claims that there is a sea of amateur, unintelligent and unprepared journalists roaming locker rooms across America asking “questions that make the recipient look at the person asking and either roll their eyes or wonder why that person is even there.”  Sorry Mark, but I’ll have to disagree with you on that one.  No, I haven’t spent any time in an NBA locker room lately, but I have participated in press conferences for NDSU athletics, and I’ve felt the pressure to not be the one to ask the stupid question.  Multiply that pressure by about 11, and I imagine that’s how nervous an unproven Internet reporter would feel strolling through your locker room, looking to strike up a chat with your players.    

NBC Sports blogger Craig Calcaterra addresses Cuban’s claims and supports his comrades in his own April 6 blog post:

Have any of them asked any players any “have you stopped beating your wife?” questions in the name of tabloid journalism?  If they did, they’d be laughed out of the business or kicked out of the clubhouse by media relations people for acting like idiots.      

Cuban would like to see a few less microphones in 
players' faces during post-game interviews

Furthermore it doesn’t make sense (as Cuban suggests) to wipe out actual sports journalists and replace them with tweeting NBA players and media-savvy owners…like Cuban himself.  As Yahoo! Sports blogger Kelly Dwyer explains in his response to Cuban, basketball players should focus on playing basketball, not tweeting and facebooking about their team.  Would Lebron James really be able to provide the fair, unbiased, analytical report on an NBA topic that sports fans want?

In this very blog I have accused certain sports journalists of acting like paparazzi, but this is different.  It’s easy for Adam Schefter to sit on camera in front of his bookshelf and speculate on meaningless things.  But, unlike locker room reporters, there’s nobody there to smack him if he says anything stupid.

Now, there are plenty of Internet reporters wanting to smack Cuban.