I love to rip on sportswriters who ask the same questions each and every year, with only the names, records and teams changes to protect the bored.

Why ? Because journalism matters. Every game is its own ecosystem (welcome to the new tech buzzword inserted here to make you say.. huh ?). It takes on a life of its own, with strategy, personalities, sub plots. The best we get in questions is “what happened coach ?” or prompts that the reporter hopes will result in someone getting in trouble “What did you think of the refs ?” No depth.

I realize its not really the reporters fault. Its the result of newsenomics. Or to paraphrase the masthead of a once great, now decent newspaper, “all the news we can now afford to find and print”.

Of course thats a shame, but it also is missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

The perception from traditional media seems to be that “media savvy youth of today” dont read , or need newspapers. They dont need the traditional 6pm news. They dont need news networks.

Thats true, they dont need them. They do want them however.

The problem is that they want them packaged to their liking – with a payoff.

Thats what media is missing with kids today. Its not the medium that acts as the circulation prevention team, its the lack of payoff and packaging.

Howard Stern has absolutely no problem discussing everything and anything happening in the world today. None. His listeners are without question better educated about the role of the FCC along with any number of important relevant issues happening today, than viewers of the CBS Evening News. Kids and adults will listen to Howard. Why ? With Howard, you get a payoff. You know if there is an angle to be exploited to find the humor, irony or hypocrisy, he will find it.

Remember when “Mike Wallace with 60 Minutes” used to strike fear in the hearts of evil doers across the world ? And viewers of 60 minutes loved it. Why ? Because we knew there was always a payoff coming. Anyone fit that role anymore ?

Journalism matters.

ABC hired Charles Gibson. Why ? Because he represents what ? Tonights stories on ABC all feature a talking head showing a picture , then talking some more , describing the picture.

A simple question. What is it that a viewer can get on world news tonight that couldnt be found on any Yahoo /Google?Yourfave newsite ? Where is the payoff ? Where is the journalism ?

Want to get younger viewers ? Go out and hire the very best recent college journalism graduates you can find. Give them a camera, a computer and an area of specialty; Business, local politics, national politics, whatever. Better yet, ask them what they think matters. Enable them to be the new “mike wallace and 60 minutes” . Tell them their only requirement is that they are equal parts journalist and adrenalin junkies. Focused on fearlessly finding the truth behind stories that matter to them, their families and friends. Guess what, even for a 21 year old, its not just about Paris Hilton, Bradgelina and the latest Rap feud.

Kids want to learn. They want to know.
Journalism matters.
But they arent going to turn in unless there is a payoff.

Does anyone in mainstream media honestly believe user generated content stops with parodies of Lazy Sunday ? Troll through myspace. Its not only for personal branding. (yes, thats what Myspace is all about. Personal Branding. MySpace = your indvidual CSS. You are what you post on your myspace page). Do a search on haditha, timor, any topic you can find in the news, and there are hundreds with an opinion about it on myspace, the other social networks and of course personal blogs like this.

Which leads to the question. Who will amass a material audience first. Young, energetic journalism graduates who post about the topics they care about on their own sites, or the main stream media.

The race is on. Unless of course you hire the people that can provide the payoff that people of all ages want.

I just hired a young, award winning journalist to partner with me on a blog that will do nothing but try to uncover corporate fraud. Young, energetic, fired up and damn the stuff i have seen so far is good. Will the payoff be about accounting gone bad ? Will it be a Skilling and Lay standing in front of the mike picture with accompanying text ? No chance.

If we found the enron scam, I would push to tell the story with a flash animation parody of Skilling and Lay to Shaggies “It wasnt me” along side a Bethany McLean/Peter Elkind quality story. Just as the movie “Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room ” told the story in a detailed and entertaining way, our goal will be to do the same.

Business is an easy place for me to start because the fraud and sithlord wannabes uncovered can not only create great stories of interest for the webite and HDNet World Report, but also allow me to buy and the sell the stocks of the company. A journalistic conflict you say ? Not any more. Not in this world. It will be fully disclosed and explained. This site is for the profit of its owners and we will buy and sell stocks that are discussed, before they are made available on the site. So make any decisions based on this information accordingly.

Facts are facts. Right is its own defense. If we can uncover companies whose stock is public and that can be bought or sold and that allows us to pay for more in depth research and effort. Im good with that.

HDNet news is also working on hiring the young and the restless to go out and produce stories that matter. Stories that have a payoff. Will we package them to reach a young audience ? Nope. HDNet isnt trolling to reduce the average age of our viewers. We dont care how old they are. We will produce news reports that matter to people of all ages. Our show Deadline is a nice little test with short , unique, irreverant stories coming from 30 plus stringers worldwide.

Journalism Matters. Im hoping the growing ignorance of this fact will make the news component of HDNet stronger and stronger and help us grow as a network
.
If you are a journalism major that can uncover stories others cant find and tell them in a way that others want to read. Send me an email with samples.

ShareThis

I get my newsalerts every morning, and click through them from my sidekick. Usually when there is an article written about me, I pretty much know its coming. Why ? Because other than Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune (if they let him work there, how does anybody think the Cubs have a chance at all ?), sportswriters will at least ask questions to make sure they are at least on the right path before they spew.

Add another to the Sam Smith brigade.

I recently wrote a tongue in cheek blog about TNT not putting the Mavs in their graphic for the Conference Finals website. TNT emailed, I told them it was all in fun. Then Michael Heistand from USA Today emailed me, thinking I was serious. I told him I wasnt, that it really was in fun, and that my biggest laugh was going to come from the media person who thought it was serious.

To Michaels credit, he not only asked me, he asked TNT, all of which he reported in his column.

“But don’t assume it’s all that serious. Consider Cuban’s reaction to TNT’s home page after the Mavs had made the NBA’s final four it still featured players from last year’s NBA final four. On his blog blogmaverick.com Cuban protested the omission while defiantly adding, “We don’t care what the national media think.”

The blog drew responses from angry fans feeling slighted by TNT. The problem, spokesman Jeff Pomeroy says, was that TNT was simply in the process of updating its home page. When he told Cuban that in an e-mail, Cuban e-mailed back: “That ruins all the fun speculation” signing off with a smiley face.

By e-mail Thursday, Cuban says his blog shot at TNT “was tongue-in-cheek humor.”

Now compare that to Mark Heisler of the LA Times in this column. IN particular

“His team, he claims, either wins or has it stolen by referees, supervised by the bumbling league office while the national press, which hates Cuban, the Mavericks and Dallas, makes up lies.

Cuban’s May 23 blog, the day after his team eliminated the Spurs, was standard conspiracy theory, noting TNT’s website had put up a montage of players from Detroit, Miami and Phoenix, with San Antonio’s Tim Duncan where Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki should have been.

“I guess we didn’t get the memo,” wrote Cuban. “Unbelievable? Not to the Mavs family. We don’t care what the national media thinks. We don’t care what the NBA thinks. We believe!” “

So Heisler wins the award for not really having a clue. This isnt the first time he just ranted with nothing to say and used the Sam Smith approach of “if someone said it somewhere, I can use it as reference and it must be true”

Now this isnt to say that Heisler has never asked me questions about issues important to him. He did at one point ask me questions about the MBA degree he was seeking. So I know he knows how to reach me. I guess he only needs to source information for the things he is involved with that he thinks are important. Did you ever get that MBA Mark ?

ShareThis

Ive spent a lot of time thinking about the Newspaper and Magazine businesses lately. Not because I want to buy a company in either industry. I dont.

Im spending the time because Im looking for the best possible ways to promote the movies we distribute and HDNet programming.

Its expensive to advertise movies or TV shows in either newspapers or magazines. Very expensive Where entertainment is traditionally advertised, you guys know you got us, and it shows in your pricing. The pricing in the Movie and TV sections of print media is outrageous.

Which means that every single company in the entertainment business is looking for a way to never ever have to spend a nickel with you again. Our entire business knows we have to spend money with you now, but we are experimenting with every option possible to pull that money from you and spend it elsewhere.

Each of us is looking for the holy grail of promotion.
A way to leave you as a customer.

How scary is that ? A huge customer of your industry would prefer not to do business with you.

So the Print industry has two choices. You can be proactive or reactive. You can watch movie and TV ads go the way of your classifieds, or you can create a price point or programs that take money away from the net and other media.

I have no problem telling you that the internet is not any better than print. Sure, the net has the unique quality that a consumer can click on an ad and within a few clicks actually buy a ticket to a movie, or a DVD. Thats a huge advantage, but its not insurmountable.

The newspapers have unique qualities as well. Bigger works better in print than online. Localization is still stronger, among other things. But if you dont start to recognize the problem and proactively create programs that make you DEMONSTRATIVELY more cost effective and impactful than other mediums, you will lose, and lose big. Im guessing this wouldnt be a good time for this to happen in your industries.

So its time to buck up. You either squeeze what you can and cry when it happens, or you step up and create cost effective alternatives. The days of a movie review and the ad for the movie wont cut it for much longer.

So those of you in the entertainment sections and sales groups of newspapers and magazines have two choices, come up with new ideas, or a new version of your resume…

ShareThis

Valuing Real Estate used to be so easy in the tech world. The PC was the first Trojan Horse. If you could get your application pre loaded on a major brands PC, then your software was a player. You would get an icon on the desktop, it would be available under Windows. Sometimes you would even get paid to bundle in your software. Quicken is the perfect example of a company who rode the PC Trojan Horse to success. Millions of users found their way to Quicken simply because it was there when they turned on their PC.

Once real estate on the PC became scarce and expensive, there was a period of time, call it the analog period of the late 80s and early 90s, when the search was on for a new Trojan Horse. MIcroSoft would never sell space in Windows. The big PC OEMs had finally realized what they had, and turned it into a profit source. The search was on for another way to get in front of consumers while they sat in front of their PCs.

Desperation ran so high that network clients , like Netware tried to increase their value to Wall Street by talking about the “installed base” of clients as a means to reach end users. Unfortunately for Novell, a genned image of Netware didnt do the trick.

Then along came the Internet and the race was on. Mozilla begat Netscape and Netscape begat the site of the day among other links and financial freedom was just a Netscape preconfigured link away. Netscape became the new trojan horse. if you could get your site linked or become a default, boom, you were a site or application that was a player. Netscape got paid. Websites got their shots at glory.

Of course, then Redmond came to the party and IE was spawned. It took some years, but it was a Trojan Horse in the making. From “channels” that were launched with IE 4.0 on, Netscape withered, Internet Explorer expanded and expanded.

In fact, it played its role so well, it begat other Trojan Horses like Yahoo, Excite, Lycos among other search sites, and baby trojan horses like Real networks and Windows Media Players.

A 2nd trojan horse emerged during the same period as AOL began to prosper and pick up subs.

Rather than going through a detailed history, Im going to pull one from Sunday morning Notre Dame replays and jump forward in the action to where we find ourselves today.

We are back at an inflection point

flash drive
PDA
Phone
Medai PC/Game box
Desktop PC
Laptop
Browser
Media Player

ShareThis

Valuing Real Estate used to be so easy in the tech world. The PC was the first Trojan Horse. If you could get your application pre loaded on a major brands PC, then your software was a player. You would get an icon on the desktop, it would be available under Windows. Sometimes you would even get paid to bundle in your software. Quicken is the perfect example of a company who rode the PC Trojan Horse to success. Millions of users found their way to Quicken simply because it was there when they turned on their PC.

Once real estate on the PC became scarce and expensive, there was a period of time, call it the analog period of the late 80s and early 90s, when the search was on for a new Trojan Horse. MIcroSoft would never sell space in Windows. The big PC OEMs had finally realized what they had, and turned it into a profit source. The search was on for another way to get in front of consumers while they sat in front of their PCs.

Desperation ran so high that network clients , like Netware tried to increase their value to Wall Street by talking about the “installed base” of clients as a means to reach end users. Unfortunately for Novell, a genned image of Netware didnt do the trick.

Then along came the Internet and the race was on. Mozilla begat Netscape and Netscape begat the site of the day among other links and financial freedom was just a Netscape preconfigured link away. Netscape became the new trojan horse. if you could get your site linked or become a default, boom, you were a site or application that was a player. Netscape got paid. Websites got their shots at glory.

Of course, then Redmond came to the party and IE was spawned. It took some years, but it was a Trojan Horse in the making. From “channels” that were launched with IE 4.0 on, Netscape withered, Internet Explorer expanded and expanded.

In fact, it played its role so well, it begat other Trojan Horses like Yahoo, Excite, Lycos among other search sites, and baby trojan horses like Real networks and Windows Media Players.

A 2nd trojan horse emerged during the same period as AOL began to prosper and pick up subs.

Rather than going through a detailed history, Im going to pull one from Sunday morning Notre Dame replays and jump forward in the action to where we find ourselves today.

We are back at an inflection point

flash drive
PDA
Phone
Medai PC/Game box
Desktop PC
Laptop
Browser
Media Player

ShareThis

Valuing Real Estate used to be so easy in the tech world. The PC was the first Trojan Horse. If you could get your application pre loaded on a major brands PC, then your software was a player. You would get an icon on the desktop, it would be available under Windows. Sometimes you would even get paid to bundle in your software. Quicken is the perfect example of a company who rode the PC Trojan Horse to success. Millions of users found their way to Quicken simply because it was there when they turned on their PC.

Once real estate on the PC became scarce and expensive, there was a period of time, call it the analog period of the late 80s and early 90s, when the search was on for a new Trojan Horse. MIcroSoft would never sell space in Windows. The big PC OEMs had finally realized what they had, and turned it into a profit source. The search was on for another way to get in front of consumers while they sat in front of their PCs.

Desperation ran so high that network clients , like Netware tried to increase their value to Wall Street by talking about the “installed base” of clients as a means to reach end users. Unfortunately for Novell, a genned image of Netware didnt do the trick.

Then along came the Internet and the race was on. Mozilla begat Netscape and Netscape begat the site of the day among other links and financial freedom was just a Netscape preconfigured link away. Netscape became the new trojan horse. if you could get your site linked or become a default, boom, you were a site or application that was a player. Netscape got paid. Websites got their shots at glory.

Of course, then Redmond came to the party and IE was spawned. It took some years, but it was a Trojan Horse in the making. From “channels” that were launched with IE 4.0 on, Netscape withered, Internet Explorer expanded and expanded.

In fact, it played its role so well, it begat other Trojan Horses like Yahoo, Excite, Lycos among other search sites, and baby trojan horses like Real networks and Windows Media Players.

A 2nd trojan horse emerged during the same period as AOL began to prosper and pick up subs.

Rather than going through a detailed history, Im going to pull one from Sunday morning Notre Dame replays and jump forward in the action to where we find ourselves today.

We are back at an inflection point

flash drive
PDA
Phone
Medai PC/Game box
Desktop PC
Laptop
Browser
Media Player

ShareThis

I have never seen or felt anything like that in my entire life. It was like watching 7 heavyweight championship fights. You know that any second either combatant can throw a haymaker and end the entire thing.

Watching our Mavs vs Spurs was the same way. There was Duncan being the Big Fundamental. Ginobli was every bit as fantastic as someone who has won championships around the world should be. Duncan kept the rolling, Ginobli threw haymaker after haymaker. I dont think any of his 3 pointers even touched the rim.

Past Mavs teams probably would have hit the canvas at least once. Even Championship series have blowouts and in the back of my mind as the series went on and the Spurs evened it up, I just hoped that we wouldnt hit the kind of pocket that the Spurs hit in game 2.

It never happened. Going into last night the mood in the locker room was surreal. No one was tense. It wasnt like the guys were even nervous. The best way I could describe it was like a pack of forwards, locked , ready to blow out a ruck in a rugby game. Its tough when you have to make something happen alone, but its a powerful feeling when you are locked and loaded and looking for contact. It sounds corny, but you could just feel it in the Mavs locker room. No one felt that the game was their responsibility. Every player in there trusted the guys on both sides of them.
They trusted their coaches. They trusted the system in place.

It showed when the game started. We came out as a team. We were confident and confidence leads to good shooting. Our shooting wasnt just good. It was unconscious. I remember thinking about Georgetown Villanova at the end of the first quarter and trying to not look up at the board that showed our shooting percentage.

When we got up 20, part of me was hoping that this was going to be like Game 2, but inside i knew better. At home, game 7, we had made our big run, and there was no way the Spurs werent going to make theirs. They had no reason to hold anything back and Pop is such a great coach, he would counter.

He did. They did.

When they hit that 3 pointer to go ahead. All I could think about is that I wasnt ready to go to the Lune , a local Dallas bar. I had seen us come back in this situation before. I trusted that we would get our shot. I couldnt hear what they called in the huddle, so i had no idea what was coming. I expected we would go for the quick 2. Then Dirk did his thing, and all of the sudden it was tied.

Like Deja Vu all over again, we just needed 1 stop. We got it.

Overtime the Legend of Ghana Diop was born. A broken nose trying to guard TD. Watching him push gauze up his nose, Ghana didnt blink. He just went out and got a huge dunk, 2 of the biggest offensive rebounds in Mavericks history and a dunk. When Ghana got the pass and finished the dunk, all I could think of was Avery pre game saying “trust your teammates. Trust the system”

That symbolized this Mavericks team. Dirk and Avery are our leaders, but first and foremost we are a team. A very special group of guys that make me incredibly proud.

A couple shoutouts are required here.

To the Spurs fans sitting by the bench last night. They were first class. They took responsibility of quieting the jerks.

To the Spurs fans on boats in the Riverwalk dragging a floating Mark Cuban in effigy. Hysterical.

To the city of San Antonio. Contrary to what people have written and said, I rhink its a beautiful city with a great culture and city pride. Even if the water in the Riverwalk is muddy

To what looked like thousands of Mavs fans who came out to see us when we landed about 1am last night. You have no idea how much that meant to all the guys and everyone in the organization.

To all Mavs fans everywhere who I know were jumping up and down and screaming and enjoying the moment. This is YOUR TEAM.

To Mavs fans everywhere who I know were jumping up and down screaming just as loudly as we all were after the game.

ShareThis

http://www.tnt.tv/title/?oid=639226

Dateline May 23rd, 7:40pm CST. The Penultimate 4.

The TNT home page . Win or go home graphic. 4 Players from the 4 advancing teams. Right ?

The Suns. Check
The Pistons. Check
The Heat. Check
The Spurs ? I dont think so.

I guess we didnt get the memo.

Unbelievable ?

Not to the Mavs family. We dont care what the national media thinks. We dont care what the NBA thinks. We believe !

ShareThis

even the people
at the San Antonio Paper dont think the citizens of SA have much of a sense of humor. But thats in the past
now.

Time to lighten up. Plan your monday night to be in front of the tube. Put on your Mavs jersey , get all your friends
together, call everyone you know with a TV Diary or People Meter for TV Ratings and tell them to turn it to TNT, and
get fired up for the Rumble by the Riverwalk.

And dont forget to set your PVR to record the game as well. This way you can replay every shot. Argue every call.
Dispute every conspiracy theory.

Back to San Antonio’s Sense of Humor.. In case you missed it:

Bob Richter

Rant on Dallas tongue-in-cheek

At least two Express-News readers were appalled with staff writer Amy Dorsett’s Page 1 story Tuesday No real
comparison

The story was a tongue-in-cheek look at the two cities, whose professional basketball teams will be locked in
mortal combat until one of them wins four games. But, as it often is with tongue-in-cheek humor, satire and puns, not
everyone gets it. It is a chance you take as a writer.

“It is really terrible to insult a beautiful city like Dallas,” said Barbara, who described herself as a person
who has lived in and loves both Dallas and San Antonio, the latter of which came out on top in Dorsett’s
comparison.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Barbara said. “I think it’s mean-spirited. Not everyone thinks that trashing another
Texas city is funny.”

Another reader said she was “appalled” by the story, but didn’t leave her name on my voice mail.

Dorsett’s response: “It was definitely tongue-in-cheek, meant to be interpreted as a look at the rivalry between
San Antonio and Dallas, and the story was so over-the-top, I would hope the vast majority of readers saw it that
way.”

Dorsett also offered one of the kudos she received from a happier reader:

“One of the most perceptive and lignt-hearted pieces of reading in a long time.

“No, a very long time.

“You don’t suppose (Express-News Editor Robert) Rivard would let you do a regular column, do you?

“Even if you promised to keep it pun-free?

“Even an occasional column?

“Anyway, thanks for brightening my day.”

Did anyone else get it or not get it?

************Take my word Bob, they didnt get it. Tongue in cheek
humor doesnt resonate in The Riverwalk City ***********. .. Did I just say something that will get me booed louder ?
Dang.

here is the
article for those who didnt see it

Express-News Staff Writer

Sure, Dallas had a popular prime-time soap opera that left a burning question on everyone’s mind who did shoot
J.R.? and the city is home to swanky shops, restaurants and art. But chin up, San Antonio, here’s one thing Big D
has never been able to lay its well-manicured hands on:

The Larry O’Brien trophy.

You know the one, the golden ball and hoop statuette the NBA bestows on its annual champion. The one that has
found its way to San Antonio three times.

As Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals tips off tonight at 8:30 at the AT&T Center and this series
gets even more interesting, some are pausing around the water cooler to analyze the rivalry between these two Texas
metropolises: San Antonio, which has been called Fat City because of its love for tortillas and queso, and Dallas,
which is known for silicone, skyscrapers and stylin’ hairdos.

Or is it skyscraping hairdos?

Like, whatever, Sue Ellen.

Just call it the battle of Big Bellies and Big Chests no love lost. And let the Mutual Disdain Fest proceed,
with this shot across the bow from San Antonio car magnate and former Spurs owner B.J. “Red” McCombs:

“People live in San Antonio because they want to,” said McCombs, who helped lead a group of businessmen
that brought the Dallas Chaparrals to San Antonio in 1973, thus giving the NBA the Spurs. “People live in Dallas
because they have to.”

“Ninety percent of the people in Dallas would rather live in San Antonio.”

Though McCombs didn’t elaborate on why he thinks so many Dallas residents would rather call the Alamo City home,
let us do the honors for him. Dallas might not have an NBA championship trophy, but it does have these things that
San Antonio doesn’t:

Sprawl. This is the polite word used for having more suburbs than you can fit in an area code, which translates
roughly into one blade of grass for every 100 people.

Traffic. They come up with clever names for their heart-attack inducing mix of freeways. Mixmaster, anyone?

Mark Cuban. Let’s just say it’s fitting that he owns a team named the Mavericks. But he is, um, fun to
watch.

Dallas is about wearing heels and eye shadow while gardening or watching the gardener.

Psssh. Bunch of stuffed shirts.

San Antonio? This is a casual city: Guayaberas can be found everywhere from poolside to symphony concerts.

Want iconic architecture? We have the Alamo, the Cradle of Texas Liberty.

They have an enormous glass golf ball on a stick they like to call Reunion Tower. (And let’s not forget
Southfork.)

We have cascarones.

They have well, suffice it to say that confetti might get gummed up in all the hairspray.

Come to think of it, given all the inflated hair and busts in Dallas, some (not us, of course!) might wonder if
anything in that city is real or if it’s all just smoke and mirrored skyscrapers.

With all the differences between the two cities, there may be but one man who can unite them, who can serve as a
calming salve, a diplomat for the NBA.

You loved him when he wore the silver and black, when he helped the Spurs win their first championship. Surely,
though he serves as Dallas’ head coach, Avery Johnson won’t be shunned.

Or will he?

“Avery was a great favorite here,” Mayor Phil Hardberger said. “But he’s on the other side now, and as much as we
like him, I guess we’ll just have to beat him.”

Johnson agrees there is a very definite rivalry between Dallas and San Antonio, but he thinks it’s a good
thing.

“It’s great for Texas, it’s great for basketball, it’s great for the NBA,” he said. “Texas should be proud they
have two teams this year that won 60 games.”

Not to be picky, but for the record, Dallas won 60 regular season games; San Antonio claimed 63 in the win
column.

Of course, most San Antonians will eagerly say their city is better than Dallas.

“There’s no comparison,” said Sylvia Castillo, a strategic planner. “Dallas is sterile, uninviting and blah.
There’s no character, no history, no soul. It’s just buildings.”

Over lunch on Monday, Darrell Hickey and Jack Smith debated the merits of their cities. Hickey, an investment
adviser, has lived in Dallas almost his entire life while his father-in-law, Smith, has lived in both, but currently
calls San Antonio home.

“I like to visit San Antonio. It’s pretty, it’s nice, but I don’t know if I’d want to live here,” Hickey said.
“Dallas has a more cosmopolitan feel.”

Smith, retired from the military and a nursing career, doesn’t agree.

“Like everybody else says, San Antonio has a million-plus people, but it has a small-town feel. Everything’s
convenient and I like the people,” he said. “I like Dallas it’s my second choice in Texas but I’ve settled here
and I love it.”

San Antonians are justly proud of the Spurs’ three championships. Johnson is proud of that, too, and said he still
has the massive championship ring that he earned after the first championship.

He keeps it stashed away in a safe, but brings it out and puts it on every now and again, and he makes no bones
that he’d love to get another one from this season.

McCombs, predictably, thinks the spoils will once again go to San Antonio.

“I love Avery Johnson. He’s a wonderful man and he’ll be one of the greatest coaches in the NBA,” he said.

“In the meantime, we’re going to kick his butt.”

ShareThis

Of all the emails I have gotten from spurs fans, this is the best. So i wanted to put it in a blog becausehe hits the nail on the head and says what I didnt think to put in thelast blog post.

Hey Mark, you are right about the rivalry. Spurs get absolutely no air
time because the nation finds them uninteresting. Yet, the Lakers can have
a non-playoff season and get almost every game televised.

That said, I would have to say I dislike you. So, your plan is working. I
would never curse at anyone, especailly a pregnant women. But, I would
definitely heckle you. I even wrote on my rear windshield, “Mark Cuban
Sucks!”, with the ‘u’ a Spur. My wife told my that it was pointless for me
to do that because you are so rich that you wouldn’t care. But, you are
the enemy, and I will stop at nothing to voice my opinion.

Michael is absolutely right that Spurs game. A Mavs or Pistons game, is always going to be 2nd to whoever Kobe, Lebron or Shaq is playing in terms of national interest. We arent going to get airtime until the networks broadcast as many Lakers, Cavs or Heat games as they can.

So while you’re thinking hard about how to clean up that nasty, muddy water that runs inside the incredibly beautiful San Antonio Riverwalk that we all love to take strolls along (even if we are concerned we might get bumped and fall in) and spend lots of money at the restaurants and bars (particularly the locally owned establishments and not the national chains) and raise lots of tax dollars for the wonderful city of San Antonio, put aside a few brain cycles and tell me your ideas of how to make people across the country care enough about our teams and our rivalry to watch us play rather than watch the other shows on this monday night, and on future game days

It may not be important to anyone else to make this happen, but it is to me. So Im wide open to ideas. If you dont like my way, give me some better ideas !

m

ShareThis