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Feb 7, 2007 – 6:45 PM
This video was found on the L.A. Lakers' official site today, and I'm willing to wager anything it's the result of a Lakers marketing guy seeing the hoopla over the Gilbert Arenas-DeShawn Stevenson three-point contest (which quickly escalated from blog-love to a Cold Pizza appearance) and saying, "Hey, our guys are fun! Let's bring a camera to the next practice and watch them goof off!"
Next thing you know, Luke Walton is challenging Brian Cook, Vladimir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic, and Jordan Farmar to an "impromptu" game of knockout. The nay-sayer in me wants to point out that this is obviously staged -- Walton is wearing a microphone, after all -- and playing for lunch at Sloopy's pales in comparison to putting $20K on the line. That said, it was still fun to watch and sucked me in for the full five minutes. Maybe I'm a sucker for behind-the-scenes footage, but I'd like to see a lot more of this type of stuff.
As every NBA fan has had hammered into his or her head this season, the Wizards are a fun-loving bunch of crazy guys ... but I have a hunch part of the reason they've earned that rep league-wide is not only because Gilbert Arenas walks to a different beat but also because of the top-notch -- and all-access -- coverage they've been getting from Washington's media, with Dan Steinberg and his excellent DC Sports Bog at the forefront. It's refreshing (and highly entertaining) to see a member of the "mainstream media" leave the walled garden of his particular publication and not only recognize but actively interact with fans, readers and the blogosphere.
In fact, maybe there's something in the water in our nation's capital, because it's not just the Wiz facilitating (and presumably encouraging) this type of coverage -- Capitals owner (and AOL bigwig) Ted Leonsis regularly credentials bloggers for games and Nationals president Stan Kasten personally emails bloggers reporting on his team.
The fans can only benefit from this shift in thinking, especially once more teams and media outlets embrace the idea of complementing their current coverage with more behind-the-scenes (and frequently informal) insight.
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