Mark Cuban tweeted out a lengthy response to the press conference answer of two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo that went viral on Thursday morning.
Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks were eliminated by the 8th seeded Miami Heat in the first round of the NBA playoffs in just five games despite having the best record in the league during the regular season.
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Eric Nehm, a Bucks beat reporter for The Athletic, asked Antetokounmpo in the postgame press conference whether he viewed the season “as a failure” following their premature elimination.
Antetokounmpo gave an emotional response to the reporter, telling him that his question was “wrong” and that “there’s no failure in sports.”
Antetokounmpo was apologetic to the reporter, saying he “didn’t want to make it personal” especially as Nehm has covered the Bucks for different outlets for nearly a decade.
But Cuban took to Twitter to call out the phrasing of Nehm’s question. Cuban said the interaction between Antetokounmpo and Nehm should be “required viewing” for sports media members and in sports journalism classes.
“Headline seeking questions that look good in a tweet are what sports media has devolved to far too often,” Cuban wrote.
The billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks also ended his initial tweet with an interesting thought about AI in sports media:
“How far away are we from @sportswriterGPT being a better source of post game questions ? It will be interesting to see where this side of the industry goes.”
Cuban also responded to another Twitter user, @AdamN916, who believes Nehm's question wasn't "insensitive or unfair."
Cuban said that "a good reporter uses empathy and understands the circumstances and realizes there are an unlimited number of ways to ask the same question that doesn’t put the recipient on the defensive." He added that he "blame the reporter" as he believes these questions are bred by the need for media outlets to generate revenue.
