Vinny Del Negro Still Coaching the Chicago Bulls

On December 28, 2009, ESPN reporter Chris Broussard posted this story on its Web site declaring that the Chicago Bulls have already decided on firing head coach Vinny Del Negro. The announcement was not made because they were waiting on a head coach. Today is January 24, 2010, and Vinny Del Negro is still the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

Look, I'm not saying that what Broussard reported was false. The problem is, whatever happened (if anything), the writer wrote a story insinuating that Del Negro was gone, and almost a month later, he's still drawing up plays.

This is one of the problems with sports reporting. There is too much reporting on rumors than actual events. This is a huge example, obviously, but it happens all the time. Last year on the trade deadline, ESPN had a big banner speculating that the Phoenix Suns were going to trade Shaquille O'Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers. When I saw that, I emailed my contact with the Suns to see if that was true. She replied back within five minutes saying that there was no truth to it at all. At the end of the day, O'Neal was still in a Suns uniform.

Currently, there are reports that Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is leaning towards retirement. Is it bad to actually wait until he makes a decision?

SABR MVP Voting

Rob Neyer blogs a fun story about a MVP candidate telling a reporter that he will cut off communication if the reporter votes for a rival candidate.

Buster's reaction:

"A vote based purely on a Sabermetric analysis would have its pitfalls as well. There was one year when a star player told a couple of writers that he would never speak to them again if they voted for a certain rival on their ballots, a situation that threatened to undermine that team's clubhouse; and after confirming that appalling story, there's no way I would've ever voted for that player for M.V.P., a situation that a SABR-like approach would've never addressed."

That is a stupid and immature reaction from the star player, however, Buster essentially said that he wouldn't vote for that play because of his comments. If that player is the best player in the game, jerk or lovable, then he deserves to win the MVP award.

Also, when has an athlete said anything meaningful? Charles Barkley is the only athlete I can think of that you would want to get a quote after a sports game. What do athlete quotes add to a sports story? This is one of the reason people turn to blogs like deadspin because they have no access and don't suck up to athletes.

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This parlays into another discussion. Ben Roethlisberger. Deadspin did a nice job discussing ESPN's Do Not Report policy on the Roethlisberger case. Well, until this. The speculation is that they don't want to lose his access. When has he said anything important? When has he commented on a game that was not full of sports cliches?

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Back to the original post. Neyer throws out his guess of A-Rod or Junior. How about Kent or Bonds? Or maybe Kent AND Bonds? Personally, I think it would be awesome if it was Mark Lemke and Jeff Blauser.