I follow the Warriors from Chicago. Over the years I have lived in some of the smaller market NBA cities as well--Milwaukee and Salt Lake City. And for a time, I followed the Mavericks through the web. I can say, in all honesty, the press in the San Francisco area does the worst job of covering a pro team I have ever seen.

The San Jose Mercury, once a great newspaper, offers not a hint of balance. Tim Kawakami reduces the game to soap opera and spends all of his time trying to figure out if Dick really will get down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow. Marcus Thompson writes short but negative. And his blog is organized around the big question, What do you think? Adam Lauridsen tries to be balanced, but this year it's proving too much for him.

The Chronicle is more balanced but very sleepy. It's really hard to stay awake through one of its stories. I only read it because I need a sedative after one of Tim K.'s breatheless irrelevancies. Geoff Lepper knows he's writing a blog, but I am not sure he knows why. Steinmetz is all over the place. He can be smart on a given day and wild as the wind the next. And he seems to always find a negative story after the occasional positve game.

When you combine this with all the Nellie-Rowell hating going on the fan sites, it's hard to find much actual basketball writing. There's a lot of negativity on this site, but your chances are still better here of finding smart commentary, some balanced writing, and some evidence of thought. What does this say about sportswriting in the wanning days of newspapers and particularly of Bay Area jurnalism? That it's a New York wanna be? Steinmetz wants us to take seriously Sam Smith, the Chicago trade proposer with a New York mind who last made contact with earth when Jordan won the championship. And Tim K is obviously Pete Vescey in training. It's actually a pretty sad commentary and if you want evidence it reflects a more generalized phenomena, watch the bozo questions the beat writers ask at the press conferences during the NBA finals. It really doesn't matter what the coach wants to say, the writers all want to talk about character.

You have a hall of fame coach in the making who has a winning record at every stop, a guy who has built three franchises, and a guy who gave you your only playoff appearance in decades. And hs is second-guessed at every turn. Some of the journalism is so hostile, in fact, that it would take a saint to ever talk to these guys again. There's a pretty thick veil over the Warrior organization. I wonder why. Tim K wrote a story about Nellie choosing greed over loayalty and it's not based on a single source, named or anonymous. Why should I trust him? Well, I shouldn't and that's the way I feel about most of the writing.

I am a reasonable man, but I read a lot of this bilk and want to get up, put on a bright red Indiana sweatshirt, kick a chair, and yell "Bobby Knight was right." There's evidence every day on this site of some of the worst of the sportswriting tendencies, but of something you don't seem to find anywhwere else: smart people talking real basketball issues. Pretty soon sportswriters are going to have to defend why we even need them.