During the summer, the prevailing NBA media style transforms from the thoughtful, long-form columns of the season to short-form, rumor-fueled tweets. It’s not necessarily a surprise, given that there simply is not nearly as much source material to pull from when putting together stories, and NBA fans often just want to hear about who their favorite team is targeting rather than a whole treatise on the virtues of one free agent.
In 2014, this competition to break news has reached new heights. The free agency of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and many others has created an environment where the many NBA writers rush to their sources in order to drop the latest piece of information. The immediacy of Twitter has fueled this climate of rampant anonymous sourcing, and it’s fair to wonder where all this information is coming from.
Sometimes, the “source’s” information is totally wrong. Sometimes, as in the case of Chris Broussard last Friday, it comes comically late. The question really is: which reporters can you trust? While these people are all excellent and very good suppliers of league-related intel, we’re Ranking The Most Popular NBA Writers and Their "Sources."
15. Jeff Goodman
14. Brian Windhorst
13. Chris Broussard
Affiliation: ESPN
Twitter followers: 925,110
Chris Broussard is an excellent reporter. He breaks a lot of stories because of his "sources," and seems to be especially connected to the players themselves. But this moment after LeBron's Cleveland decision had already been published was pure comedic gold:
What do we think he was looking at on his phone? The SI story? Twitter? We'd love to know.