Except it's been proven before that coaches and players don't take their votes seriously for most awards. Like I said, it's cool right now to hate on the media in America, but they do as good a job as you can with these awards. There are of course results that are bad sometimes, but that's a given no matter who is doing the voting. The idea though that players/coaches are closer to the game so they'd get more right not only belittles the media but it also assumes an intelligence and professionalism about players that just isn't universally true. The media takes the job seriously. They may take themselves TOO seriously sometimes, but with regards to things like this I'd rather them take the responsibility too seriously than treat it like a chore.
Well actually (lol) I'm not correcting you (I mean I am now but wasn't then!) because it wouldn't shock me if he's misleading people. He's not a genuine guy in my opinion.
Dude’s skin is too tight and he looks plastic-y to me. Definite work done. But hey, some guys like that. NTTAWWT.
Bucher used to be ok when he was at ESPN. But now since he is a radio host in the Bay Area, he is a bit more hot takey.
Bucher had a vote last year, his affiliation being listed as Bleacher Report. As far as media voting, after spending so much time on this, I actually think it's not too bad. I don't know where you could find 101 better people to vote on the awards. At minimum, we know that these people are keeping up with and watching the NBA. Sure, there are bad seeds. You're always going to have the Bill Simmons or Zach Lowe who live and breathe NBA basketball, then the Michelle Beadle, who seems like a casual Spurs fan. Tim Reynolds should have his vote taken away because he's voted for LeBron the last two years, and he didn't deserve either one. Or Bondy (I think), who said it's LeBron and it's not close. No one picking LeBron should have the opinion that it's not close. But then you have Eddie Sefko, a Dallas writer who voted Harden. Or Will Guillory, a first-year voter from New Orleans, who picked Harden over AD. We do have 33 Harden votes so far, it looks like they'll get this one right.
Media being in charge of voting for this award is fine. But they should continue to vet the voters. They cleaned up the voters last year. They tightened the group and removed a lot of "local TV guys" and ancillary local beat writers. Seems like "media affiliation" to large media outlets counts a lot and that should be questioned a bit. There are a lot of "easily influenced" people at big outlets. The echo chamber. And then you have people like Matt Moore. He was at CBS Sports and had a vote last year. He left CBS Sports to go work at The Action Network and lost his Awards vote. BUT.....he is GREAT with stats and analysis. His VOTE means something because there is HEFT behind it. Yet, he is no longer a voter. This is the situation that needs to be addressed. VET the voters. How seriously are they taking the voting? Quite frankly, are they qualified? "Big Media company" is not a qualification.
It's been proven? How and where? I'm not someone who goes around blindly bashing media outlets. I have a great respect for journalists and their importance (especially in today's society). However, sports media is mostly made up of talking heads whose opinions are usually only partially informed. Their sense of self-importance is almost entirely unearned. I remember when the players had a separate MVP vote and members of the sports media were up in arms that the players had a voice at all. Michael Wilbon made it known that he thinks he and his colleagues are more informed and more deserving of crowning the MVP than the people who are on the court playing with and against other players and in the film room studying the game tape. Let's not forget that the narrative early in the season was that Kyrie should be MVP because of the "storyline". Did his team have a slightly better record than the Rockets? Yes. Was his performance up to par with what Harden was doing? Not even close. The fact that it was a serious discussion that was being had is enough to make you think twice about their involvement in the year-end awards process. The fact is, the sports media at large continually changes the voting criteria to fit a narrative. The players and coaches are not 100% unbiased. But I at least would trust them to look at the voting consistently more on merit than to make it about a story. If ESPN didn't control such a large percentage of the vote, I might feel differently. But as it currently is, when a company can almost single-handedly decide the result, it's not a good system.
Go look at some of the players who got all-star votes. Go look at who gets gold gloves and other awards in baseball that are non-media voted. I 100% agree with Michael Wilbon that the media is more informed about the players than the actual players. 100% agree with him. Not universally true, but for the most part, yes that's true. Who was the player who the other day said Lebron was one of the best defenders in the league this season? Players have strong incentive to manipulate votes and no, they are not universally a well informed group.
This. Players of various sports have been proven to be poor voters. Look at the NFL top 100 thing. Derek Carr was #11 and Dak Prescott was #14 last year...at any position in the entire league. Carr was ahead of Aaron Donald.
Lemme get this straight: y'all tryna argue that the players, who read scouting reports of every single player in the nba every day, don't know more about each other than the media? Please. 75% of the media at minimum wouldn't be able to identify proper help defense even if their life depended on it. If there was a basketball history test, they would fail. There needs to be a vetting proces for these fools. With players/coaches/gms, if they get these surveys, 50 bucks they don't take it that seriously. Who cares, really to them. Means nothing. But the media takes their jobs seriously yet they are really stupid with it quite frankly. Unmotivated players still vote better than motivated media members.
Yes I'm going to argue that players know less than the media about each other. As to your point that the media can't identify proper help defense, I'll argue that neither can most NBA players. They were given the all-star vote after the players whined about the media and then they did some terrible votes. They'll vote for their friends, they'll vote based on shoe deals, they won't pay attention, etc. Most NBA players reject statistics as being stupid and we know that guys skate by on reputation longer than they are able to produce.
