I am loving this alliteration, even if y’all find it cheesy. Alliteration makes coming up with these stupid headlines a lot easier. I might go back to pure-informative later, I don’t know. Right now, cheesy alliteration is where it is at.
So I’ve been thinking about this piece by Seth Davis, scolding Kyrie Irving for denying ZagsBlog’s (correct, accurate, on the money) Tuesday night post that claimed that he had committed to Duke. Since it looks like recruiting is heating up more, and it’s a huge morass and ergo attractive to me, I’ve been following this story pretty carefully. From what I can tell, it’s been looking like Irving was a huge Duke lean for a while – he wants to focus on academics as well as athletics and he has always spoken highly of the program. His visit to Midnight Madness was what surprised me, not his enthusiasm on Duke, especially following his official visit there. I don’t think anyone was surprised when he chose Duke, even before Zag broke the story. Not too unusual.
The whole episode with Zag’s Blog wasn’t terribly unusual, either. A blog makes a claim about a recruit, and the recruit denies regardless of the validity of the claim. It isn’t a shot against the blog, it isn’t a kid lashing out, it’s just a desire by the kid to have some sort of control over his announcement. So why, as Seth Davis suggests, should Kyrie Irving apologize? What did he do wrong? Yes, he misled the public, but this isn’t out of the ordinary for recruits. Yes, he made it seem like Zag was incorrect, but given Zag’s listing of his sources and the fact that Irving’s commitment on Thursday just emphasized how right Zag was initially, Irving didn’t hurt Zag or his credibility (ps, I know his name is Adam Zagoria, but Zag is shorter).
It’s a weird situation, because the kid has every right to control his announcement, especially when that announcement is greeted with great fanfare. And, let’s not forget, these blogs and news outlets have every right to look for stories and break them when they feel appropriate. Zag’s Blog wasn’t doing anything wrong by writing about Irving’s recruiting decision – if he hadn’t some other blog might have scooped him.
But the situation is a mess, and fingers are itching to be pointed somewhere. I’d say that if it has to go anywhere, it should go to those “sources”. I’m all for the free exchange of information – I’m in a field that demands it, but there are cases where the information isn’t that important. Like here, where it would come out in a day or two, anyway. To know that some of the sources were affiliated with Duke does raise an eyebrow – how does it help your program to undermine an announcement that would be a high-point of a student-athlete’s undergraduate career?
Wildcat Notion 