Free agency signings are always tough to report, as there are often plenty of moving parts and plenty of people involved in the process. Some sources might think that a deal’s done and pass that on to the media, only for the player to sign somewhere else. So really, all things considered, it’s impressive that we don’t see more major media reports that wind up being wrong. We did get one Sunday night, though, with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski initially indicating that free-agent shooting guard Mario Hezonja was headed to the Portland TrailBlazers, before deleting and correcting that tweet a minute later with the news Hezonja was headed to the Knicks:
BLAZERS LEGEND MARIO HEZONJA. HANG HIS JERSEY NEXT TO ANDERSON VAREJAO’S. PORTLAND WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE MEMORIES. pic.twitter.com/muD9SFcNdZ
— Varoon Bose (@varoonbose) July 2, 2018
As Wojnarowski later tweeted, there were plenty of teams in play for Hezonja, and he wound up signing to the same terms initially reported with Portland:
For Hezonja and KNICKS, it's a one-year, $6.5M deal, sources tell ESPN. He'll have a real opportunity to create some traction for his career with the Knicks. https://t.co/hLe6jPXwaI
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2018
But the incredibly brief moment where everyone thought Hezonja was going to the Blazers led to lots of comedy:
oh hey Portland did a good. I like that Hezonja deal.
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) July 2, 2018
nope, nevermind, Portland did not do a good. https://t.co/KDLlbfkzXw
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) July 2, 2018
https://twitter.com/DaveDeckard/status/1013591416457400320
https://twitter.com/MaxaMillion711/status/1013590508721954816
Where’s the blog post to Portland, Hezonja? They deserve one. https://t.co/fd8EJG6m5x
— D-Ainger Zone (@IceolationBergy) July 2, 2018
https://twitter.com/jezelliot/status/1013590614162763778
That last one, a note to Woj’s draft night thesaurus, is particularly good. And of course, this isn’t really a huge deal; as mentioned, these transactions are tricky, and a one-minute gap before correction is incredibly short. But it is rare to see, and it did lead to some good jokes. And thank goodness this didn’t happen with LeBron’s announcement, or there would have been riots in the streets.
