NBA Insider with Ken Berger

I have a lot more to say about the fallout from NBA Players Association president Billy Hunter’s comments about the All-Star Game in New Orleans next year. Some of those thoughts either don’t fit or don’t belong in the newspaper.

That is what a blog is for.

First, as I made clear in my column today, I really had no problem with the issues Hunter raised when I interviewed him Monday night at Madison Square Garden before the Knicks played the Miami Heat. I don’t really have a problem with those who criticized him, either. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

For the purposes of review, here are the two columns:

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spberg275110781feb27,0,6399649.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-spberg015113504mar01,0,1418912.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists

But I do have a problem when other members of the media make it seem as though I got my quotes from Hunter in a sneaky, unprofessional way. That is what analyst Greg Anthony said on ESPN yesterday, when he presented the following blow-by-blow account of conversations that he most certainly did not witness.

Anthony said Hunter “was talking with Shaquille O’Neal and a bunch of the Miami Heat about other issues, and they were talking about New Orleans after what just happened in Las Vegas. And there was a reporter there who basically eavesdropped on the conversation and asked a hypothetical.”

If Anthony were a real journalist, he would know that eavesdropping is not an acceptable or ethical way to get comments from a public figure and print them in the newspaper. Sure, it would’ve been asking too much to expect Anthony to check out the account he was given to see if it was accurate. But at the very least, he should have divulged the source of his information.

The source was Hunter, and that’s where things get a little murky.

Anthony was one of three media members who spoke with Hunter on Tuesday, when he was in damage-control mode over comments he made in my interview with him about New Orleans’ viability as an All-Star host. Two of them essentially came away with the impression that I overheard Hunter’s conversations with Miami players, casually asked him one question, and then printed his answer as well as the content of his private conversations in the newspaper, thus creating a national controversy.

As Neil Best, our intrepid media watchdog, will explain in an upcoming column, this is not even close to what happened. I did see Hunter in the Heat locker room, and was standing right next to him while he had an interesting chat with Michael Doleac about pension benefits. I never heard him discuss the All-Star Game with anyone, but had previously made a mental note to ask him about the topic the next time I saw him.

When Hunter was finished doing business with the players, I followed him into the hallway and interviewed him for 10 minutes, digital recorder in plain view. The All-Star Game wasn’t even the first topic I asked him about, but it was the one that prompted the most newsworthy responses.

I thought it was a little odd that the Times-Picayune’s front-page story following up the controversy on Wednesday stated mysteriously that Hunter’s comments “showed up” in Newsday. The New Orleans paper wrote: “Newsday quoted Billy Hunter from a Madison Square Garden locker room, where he was conversing with players about the recent Las Vegas All-Star weekend.”

Hunter, through an intermediary, claimed that his account of what happened was misinterpreted by Anthony and the New Orleans writer. This made him perhaps the first person ever to be misquoted about being misquoted.

Unless James Dolan has piped hallucinogens through the air ducts at Madison Square Garden – which, come to think of it, is not beyond the realm of possibility – there was no ambiguity about how I got Hunter’s quotes. I got them by interviewing him with a recorder, face-to-face, for 10 minutes outside the locker room.

Stating that a reporter eavesdropped on private conversations and wrote them as if they were obtained legitimately is one of the worst falsehoods you could spread about a journalist. Hunter, I am certain, didn’t realize this. I don’t think he meant any harm, and to be fair, what he actually said to these media members is up for interpretation.

Given the fact that it’s entirely plausible that the three people who spoke with him Tuesday came away with three slightly different versions, I am willing to write it off as a bad game of telephone and move on.

That is why, despite the fact that my reputation could have suffered from this, I chose to defend Hunter’s comments yet again in my column today. I still don’t think he said anything particularly outrageous in the interview, and it would’ve been unfair for me to turn on him in print based on personal differences over how he handled the fallout.

I don’t know how long this All-Star story is going to linger. I do think it’s a good thing that the issue is out in the open. After criminal elements cropped up at the Vegas All-Star Game, isn’t it reasonable to wonder how those elements will be dealt with in a city struggling with law and order?

I’ll leave you with this: As I tried to point out with statistical evidence in my column today, hundreds of arrests are nothing out of the ordinary at any large gathering surrounding a sporting event. The problem is not exclusive to the NBA. In fact, with 1,010 arrests in Miami Beach last year during a five-day celebration for Memorial Day, throwing a lot of people in jail is not even unique to sports gatherings.

But when someone involved in the NBA opens his mouth about this, it’s always a big deal. I’d be curious to get your thoughts on why, as well as your opinion about anything I’ve written here or in the paper on these topics.

Debate is good, even if we disagree.