Posts tagged ‘mike jones’

On this edition of the Dagger Report, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and myself are joined by Mike Jones, currently the Wizards beat reporter for the Washington Times, and Jimmy Toscano of Celtics Blog.

With Mike, we discuss:

• Dealing with Gilbert Arenas in general and the exclusive he got with him this summer;
• His reaction when Arenas called the media “lazy”;
• Developing a rapport with players as a reporter;
• The current state of the Wizards and Arenas playing with a “video-game mentality”;
• The path Mike took to covering the Wizards at the Times;
• The back luck he faced on his first day on the job, covering a Wiz game in Cleveland … of all places;
• His next move as the Times has decided to cut its coverage of sports;
• The changing media landscape, its affect on local and national sports coverage, and the presence of blogs.

With Jimmy, we discuss:

• His foray, like Mike Prada and myself, into the locker room to cover an NBA team up close as a blogger;
• How Brian Scalabrine recognized Jimmy as a new face amongst the media and took the time to ask him his name, among the other characters of the Celtics locker room;
• The progression of Garnett’s knee, the statistical production of Paul Pierce, and the Celts in general.

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{ flickr/wizardsdotcom }

Economy hurting newspapers in a dying industry? Well, when Mike Jones is afforded the opportunity** the spend a couple weeks in Chicago, and thus the ability to break through Gilbert Arenas’ media silence ice, we all see why true professionals need to be around for a long time. (And honestly, they’re not going anywhere, the platform/game is just changing).

Ok, enough of the digressive spiel. Jones has put together an epic* post on Gilbert Arenas’ nameless comeback tour.

* Well, epic to Wizards fans and those dedicated to the NBA, perhaps in hope that Agent Zero will make things a little less ‘boring’, and in a sense that Arenas has been on a media hiatus for a long time, with many probably not expecting him to talk again until September 28th’s media day.

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Mike Jones of the Washington Times reports that, according the league sources, Ernie Grunfeld has four players targeted near the center of his dart board: Rasho Nesterovic, Channing Frye, Jason Collins and Jamaal Magloire.

While none of these big men are the ‘sexy’ pick fans desire, each might be serviceable for the current amount of minutes Grunfeld is pigeon-holing the potential addition into. And each, according to Jones, might have to settle for the veteran’s minimum in the current economic environment.

Of course, with whispers of Nesterovic returning to Europe, I would not be surprised if he spurned the NBA to play for more money overseas. Nonetheless, Jones is usually spot-on with his reporting, so there’s a fair chance one of these guys will be joining the Wizards in the future. Let’s learn a little bit about each:

Rasho Nesterovic

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Everyone is talking about Courtney Lee’s missed ‘layup’ that would have won the game for Orlando. Some even compared it to Nick Anderson missing four late free-throws  in game one of the 1995 NBA Finals, also played on June 7th  [via Slam].

Mentioning Nick Anderson sounds very “woe is us” from Orlando. Thing is, true fans aren’t making the association, rather some professional MSMers.  These hacks need to be called out:

1) D-bag from the AP [via Sports Illustrated]:

A shot that couldn’t have been much easier.

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