Whom would you believe? CSN’s Dei Lynam or Yahoo Sports’ Adam Wojnarowski
By Theodore N. Beitchman
No matter if you like or dislike the Sixers’ pick of Joel Embiid at No. 3 overall in Thursday night’s NBA draft, one of the intriguing preliminary sub-plots was the team’s ardor for Andrew Wiggins (photo above with NBA commissioner Adam Silver), whom it coveted and spent three days with last week.
And, since GM Sam Hinkie speaks publicly as often as a Tibetan monk, we were all left to speculate.
No one speculated more often and with less accuracy than Michael Barkann and Dei Lynam of Comcast SportsNet.
Lynam reported — the term is used advisedly — that the Sixers had offered No. 3 and Thaddeus Young. Then it became No. 3, No. 10 and No. 32. All for the rights to Wiggins.
Philly seemed motivated.
But was it all a smokescreen?
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, arguably the gold standard of NBA reporters, tweeted that a league source he had spoken with says the Sixers never even inquired of Cleveland about Wiggins.
Does this also mean the 76ers’ infatuation with Wiggins was also a misdirection? They weren’t getting him at No. 3, where they ultimately took Joel Embiid.
That doesn’t mean the Sixers didn’t pursue Wiggins.
Wojnarowski has been around a long time and is reliable as they come, but that doesn’t change that it’s logically impossible to prove something didn’t happen. This really comes to how much you trust that Wojnarowski trusts his anonymous source.
I do. And a hell of a lot more than Lynam, who has no league sources and mostly imparts no original information to the poor CSN viewers. And that’s when she isn’t parroting the team’s party line.
Anyone in position to know might just be pushing an agenda. After all, that’s what Wojnarowski is essentially saying other reporters’ sources did.
Maybe the Cavaliers want to protect themselves from criticism for passing on a trade if Andrew Wiggins busts. Maybe the Sixers want to avoid criticism for failing to complete their trade objective. There is definitely potential for either team to steer the narrative the direction Wojnarowski has taken it.
Without a name on the source to judge his or her intent, it’s difficult to fully trust this – especially because logic precludes Wojnarowski himself from doing anything more than trusting his source. There’s just no way for anyone to verify it.
