You may remember Bobby Marks for his great work as GM of the Nets when he infamously traded a haul of picks to Boston that became Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Marks has been working in the media for almost a decade now and has never quite let go of the grudge he holds against the Celtics for how that deal blew up in his face.
Years later, he’s still at it. Marks went on Sirius XM NBA Radio and shot down the idea that there’s a vibrant trade market for Jaylen Brown. He went on to say, “I had an analytics guy tell me, ‘We view [Jaylen Brown] as the seventh-best player on a TEAM.’”
Jaylen Brown has had enough
There was further context, but that line, of course, quickly got aggregated and caught the attention of Brown, who responded to a post on Twitter, “Analytics nowadays used to discredit and control narratives - Roll the ball out none of these guys better than me on both ends who does he work for”.
This led to Marks replying, trying to backpedal, justify the take, and claim that he had spent two minutes defending Brown, to which JB offered what has become a legendary retort, “State your source”.
Brown made this line famous, using it on another ESPN loudmouth with whom he is still beefing to this day, Stephen A. Smith. At this point, it has become clear that JB and ESPN are never going to see eye-to-eye. He blamed them for making a story out of his comments about this being his favorite season recently, and he has been going back and forth with Smith all summer.
Now, it’s Marks who is feeling his wrath, and it’s starting to seem like Jaylen doesn’t even really care who the target is. He’s clearly sick of these nameless sources coming up with ridiculous narratives, and make no mistake, that’s exactly what this is.
The aggregation and anonymous quotes have gotten out of control
Marks knew what he was doing when he said this, and he can play dumba l lhe wants, but he knew this quote would blow up and go viral, and that’s what he wanted. He’s getting his 15 minutes of fame and his desired attention while Brown and rational, level-headed fans are laughing at him.
Maybe his point isn’t that crazy, but there are many better ways to go about making it. Is Brown’s value sky high? Perhaps not. And there may be some teams that don’t hold him in the highest regard. But this off-hand comment from an anonymous source is completely absurd. Marks isn’t dumb. He knows how absurd the comment is. And yet, he chose to put it out there with his name attached to it.
Now, he’s paying the price, and his credibility should take a hit. This is the problem with a lot of NBA media, and thankfully, Brown is fighting back and leading the charge against this kind of trash. Good for him. And good for us. Hopefully, more people will follow suit and call out people who deserve to be called out.
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