Oct

2

Kirilenko In Camp With Jazz Says Don’t Blame Me, Blame the Media!

Posted by Jeff Sack under Main 

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You know I am a blessed man! I got paid for 11 years for doing something you would probably pay to do. I went into locker rooms in MLB, the NFL, and the NBA, talked to professional athletes, and watched games from the press box. And then I would get on the radio and talk about it and play my recorded interviews. If you ever meet a sports reporter and they tell you that they have a tough life, do me a favor, hit them in the head, please!

However I will talk to you about one thing that is my own personal pet peeve, something that really fries my behind! That is when athletes in any sport blame?”The Media” for stupid things they said or did! And when it’s even worse is when they say the stupid stuff on their own blog on their own website, and they still?blame us!? Such?is the case with Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko. Kirilenko was the MVP of the FIBA Euro-Tournament, and he led his Russian team to the Tournament Championship. Now probably filled with national pride, emotion, nostalgia, and who knows maybe a little vodka thrown in for good measure, he started to put his thoughts into Cyber-Space.

At first Kirilenko said he wasn’t sure that the Jazz were a good fit for him. Although he admired and respected Utah coach Jerry Sloan he wasn’t sure that his offensive game plan best suited Andrei’s skill-set. He thought maybe it would be better if maybe the Jazz and he explored options of his playing with another NBA team. People were just starting to digest the original reports, when Kirilenko took to the keyboard again. This time he said he wanted to play the 2007-2008 season in Russia. The Jazz issued a terse statement saying they expected the forward to meet his obligations and show up to Training Camp on time. Without the Jazz consent FIBA would never allow Kirilenko to play for a Russian League team. NBA observers held their collective breath and waited for Monday October 1.

Well Kirilenko was in for Media Day on Monday, saying that the whole episode was much ado about nothing and saying “The Media” made it into a much bigger issue. Kirilenko then refused to talk about the comments he had written about Coach Sloan, until he finally said “I mean, again, we never had a conflict with Jerry.?You created. Sometimes we have a misunderstanding, but it is not a conflict.”

We created it eh Andrei? ?We “The Media” typed those words on your Internet site, on your blog? I think you give us far too much power, Andrei, but of course without the supposed power we could not absorb the blame. Attention all professional athletes!! We “The Media” are those guys in the locker room that don’t wear uniforms, with those lanyards around our neck that has an ID Badge with our picture and the word MEDIA on it. Our jobs are to be conduits, pipelines of information. When I am in a Professional Locker Room it is my job to be the eyes, ears, and voice for you the sports fan. We don’t create the controversy, you do, we just tell people about it! The messenger has been shot since the days of the Middle Ages, but it’s real tough to shoot the messenger when the message come from your own keyboard Andrei!

? Copyright 2007 thesackattack.com


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