A good old fashioned NBA reporter feud began brewing on Wednesday, and the news that Tyronn Lue is joining the Los Angeles Clippers as an associate head coach is apparently at the root of it.
Marc Stein of the New York Times sent a tweet congratulating The Athletic on reaching 600,000 subscribers, but he also took the opportunity to air out some frustration about people who work there claiming other reporters’ work as their own. He followed up with an apology and said his gripe is “exclusively with one reporter.”
Congrats to @TheAthletic and my many, many colleagues there on the 600K subscribers. Two cents from an old hack: Perhaps a good corresponding goal is to cease with presenting the NBA news reports of others as your own because it reflects poorly on the name at large
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) August 21, 2019
Apologies to the colleagues I lumped in here who shouldn't be lumped in here. The quarrel is exclusively with one reporter. Poor form from me …
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) August 21, 2019
The one reporter Stein was referring to is Shams Charania. On Tuesday, Charania reported that Lue has agreed to a deal to become the top assistant on Doc Rivers’ staff with the Clippers. Stein reported that the two sides were close to an agreement last week, but Charania didn’t mention anything about Stein having it first. That did not sit well with Stein, who retweeted the following from Andrew Marchand of the New York Post.
Some context: Shams reported yesterday that Ty Lue would be an assistant coach with the Clippers. Stein had reported that last week. https://t.co/mrkNn1mNfz
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) August 21, 2019
The issue involved in the Stein-Shams thing is that there is a feeling among some NBA reporters — apparently Stein is one — that Shams will take press releases and other reporters and attach sources to them to get aggregated by B/R and others.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) August 21, 2019
That said, I think Shams does break some stories and that is a credit to him. But he doesn't need to do the trying to taking credit when it is not due thing, IMO. He's established himself.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) August 21, 2019
Even if Charania’s report was slightly different in that Stein reported that Lue was close to a deal with the Clippers and Charania reported that a contract had been agreed to, it’s still good practice to mention who had it first. Whether or not Stein should have called Charania out the way he did is another debate altogether.
