- NBA Fanhouse: Uncle Ruckus tries to explain why his Kansas City Star article and his AOL piece provided two virtually opposite accounts of All Star Weekend. He blames the headline on the KC Star piece.
The Star column was written before there was any solid reporting about what transpired in Vegas. We heard lots of stories and we saw lots of thugs, but when I wrote the Star column it was impossible to figure out if all the reports of violence were just rumors or truth. By the time I wrote my AOL column it was clear the reports were true and I had time to talk with plenty of other attendees who experienced the same thing we did.“
Later, Whitlock writes a new article where he compares himself to Rosa Parks. He has a point; Whitlock is three, maybe four, times the person Rosa Parks was.
- Leave the Man Alone: A detailed account of the discrepancies of the two articles.
“Whitlock went out of his way in his AOL article to cobble together anecdotes of fear and terror from the locals and rumors from cab drivers and gossip sites. But, there were A LOT of people in town, not just Bloods and Crips. There was a huge apparel convention, the NBA All Star weekend revelers and, the biggest draw of all, Chinese New Year. (If you want to pin blame for any violence, don’t sleep on the Chinese. The Triad doesn’t play.) Any disturbances and everyone assumes it was the NBA, the hip-hoppers, and/or the thugs.“
Sports on my Mind and Sports By Brooks also took Whitlock to task.
- TrueHoop: Another look at Tim Hardaway’s comments, and the Scoop Jackson/Hardaway ESPN interview.
