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The best news for reporters looking to regain access to NBA locker rooms could be the player elected as president of the National Basketball Players Association last summer.
While New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum said he is striving for a “balance,” it’s clear that he understands the reasons why reporters want a return of access they had before leagues closed locker rooms to the press due to the COVID pandemic.
That’s because McCollum, who last week joined the podcast I host with the New York Post‘s Andrew Marchand, spent his college career covering Lehigh sports like a beat reporter. He graduated from Lehigh with a journalism major.
CJ McCollum said he’s eager to find a solution that makes both players and reporters happy.The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast
“I remember what it was like to try to get quotes after games covering Lehigh sports and interviewing a coach after a tough loss and interviewing a coach after a tough win,” he said. “It’s all difficult. But at the end of the day, we all have deadlines. ”
McCollum said he covered virtually every sport at school, other than basketball and swimming, and even tried his hand at video editing and camera work. “Trying to follow a field hockey ball in a storm with the camera – all that is difficult,” he said.
At this year’s NBA All-Star Game, Commissioner Adam Silver essentially said that locker rooms would remain closed for the foreseeable future. “It’s a bit of an anachronism to have reporters in the actual room where players are dressing,” he said.
Later, he said, “I’m not sure if we were designing a system from scratch today, we would say come stand next to the players at their lockers as they’re dressing, and that’s the appropriate forum to interview them.”
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McCollum said he supported closing the locker rooms because of COVID, but he’s eager to find a solution that makes both players and reporters happy.
“Relationships are important, and the only way to really kind of maintain certain relationships is to have that locker room access,” he said. “It is important from a standpoint journalism and a storytelling standpoint. The peer-to-peer interview is just better, generally. Zoom is great. We’re thankful for the adjustments that we’ve been able to make with it. But there’s nothing like a press conference postgame. There’s nothing like the immediate reactions that you can get live. ”
McCollum went on to say that he’s hopeful to find “a happy medium to be met where the players are still happy but the journalists are still getting the information they need.”
John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ourand_SBJ and read his weekly newsletter and listen to his weekly podcast.
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