Dan Le Batard Image Credit: The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
ESPNNBABy Sean Keeley on

You’ve heard of Woj bombs, but this one might be more of a Le Batard bomb.

Radio host Dan Le Batard has never been shy about sharing his opinion when it comes to how other media members are reporting news, especially when it involves his former employer ESPN.

Couple that with anything to do with his Miami Heat, and you have a recipe for the Meadowlark Media co-owner to drop some harsh critiques.

“Thank you for bringing up Woj…the Heat know that he’s just agenda-based, shilling, bought and paid for by Portland, it’s embarrassing that Woj is telling people it might be weeks or months on Lillard,” Le Batard said on Monday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz during a discussion around the Damian Lillard trade talk between the Heat and Portland Trail Blazers.

“This is the Heat’s position, there are no calls going back and forth. The offer is [Tyler] Herro and Herro is the best one you are going to get from anybody,” Le Batard said on Monday. “He’s better than [Tyrese] Maxey. He is the best you are going to get. You are boxed in, Lillard wants to be with us.”

 

Le Batard was reacting to Woj’s report over the weekend that the Blazers are holding off on making a “bad deal” with the Heat and that “Portland is motivated to wait this out.”

“I think the absence of a real deadline lurking on a Damian Lillard trade — there’s no trade deadline coming, there’s no NBA draft, there’s no July 1 free agency about to start — all those landmarks in the NBA calendar give teams motivation and give teams parameters to get big deals done,” Wojnarowski said Friday.

“There’s no rush for either side to be real aggressive in their conversations with each other, and for Portland, they’re motivated to wait this out and continue to see, ‘How do we get the most back for Damian Lillard?’”

There’s a wee bit of the pot calling the kettle black here in terms of Le Batard saying Woj is biased, especially as Le Batard uses “us” to refer to Miami. But it’s certainly not the first time someone has accused Woj of carrying water for one side of a potential deal. It’s also not the first time someone from The Dan Le Batard Show has done it.

“Adrian knew. He knows what the deal is,” said Amin Elhassan in early July after Woj reported that multiple NBA teams might be interested in acquiring Lillard. “What he is engaging in is protecting one of his closest sources by giving them cover by saying there’s no way he’s going to go to Miami and coming up with ridiculous premises like San Antonio could be a dark horse. It’s all poppycock.”

The show also got into it with The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor over his thoughts on the Lillard trade. After saying any transaction between the two involving the assets floated “would go down as one of the worst trades in NBA history,”  Mike Ryan accused O’Connor of doing “whatever he could” to stop Lillard from being traded to Miami.

There’s a lot at stake here in the potential Lillard trade. The Blazers’ all-time leading scorer requested a trade earlier this month and made it clear he wants to play for the Heat. This comes just a year after he signed an extension that still has four years and potentially $216 million remaining. Given that the 7-time All-Star averaged 32.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 7.3 assists last season, Portland understandably wants something significant in return for him, even if Miami is motivated to make a deal.

The Le Batard folks might be right that this is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors as the Trail Blazers postpone the inevitable, but it’s an interesting look for an independent radio program to be so defensive on behalf of an NBA franchise so often. While Woj may or may not be providing cover and other reporters may or may not be getting worked by sources, The Dan Le Batard Show is the one that appears to be carrying the most water at this point.

Of course, if this trade does indeed go down in the coming days, you can be sure that they’ll remind everyone how correct they were.

[The Dan Le Batard Show/NBA Central]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Editorial Strategy Director for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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