Photo Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Rick Carlisle Blasts ESPN For LaVar Ball Article, But Isn’t In The Right
Yesterday, ESPN published an article about LaVar Ball saying that Luke Walton has lost control of the team and that, “Nobody wants to play for him”.
This article led to Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle absolutely blasting ESPN. While defending Luke Walton, Carlisle called the article “a disgrace”.
“As president of the coaches association, I view the recent ESPN article as a disgrace. Luke Walton is a terrific young coach, who’s bringing along a young team, and it’s a difficult task. If you don’t believe it, just ask me. We’re going through that now, we went through it last year. ESPN is an NBA partner, and they’ve been a great one. But part of that partnership is that the coaches do a lot of things to help them with access, interviews, all those kind of things, and in exchange for that, they should back up the coaches. Printing an article where the father of an NBA player has an opinion that’s printed as anything like legitimate, erodes trust. It erodes the trust that we’ve built with ESPN. Our coaches are upset because Luke Walton does not deserve that.”
A reporter then (rightfully) asked Carlisle if he thinks that ESPN should only be publishing stories that coaches would approve, and Carlisle replied.
“I’m saying that they should look at their sources and do a better job of determining whether they have any merit or any validity, or are they just blowhard loudmouths. That’s what I’m saying,”
What Carlisle seems to forget is, that ESPN isn’t a PR branch of the NBA. They pay an insanely high amount of money for the rights to broadcast the NBA, and therefore have access to players, coaches and interviews. It doesn’t even matter if you agree with LaVar Ball, or think that he isn’t a legitimate interview partner, it is ESPN’s right to publish articles like that and not be dictated.
