Blazers Ownership Ridiculously Threatening to Cut Ties With Oregonian Over Critical Story

The NBA is a league that favors homerism. If you're tuning into a local broadcast, you're almost expecting the announcers to express their bias in favor of the home team. Local media is in the same boat.

The Oregonian took a risk moving away from favoritism by writing an article that was a collection of memes and tweets criticizing of the hometown Trail Blazers after their Game 3 loss.

The article upset some fans, but Blazers President Chris McGowan took it step too far by actually threatening to cut ties with the The Oregonian.

The Blazers cutting ties with The Oregonian over an article meant to entertain would tarnish media relationships. While homerism is favored in the NBA, the media is not a mouthpiece for the teams.

Oregonian editor Therese Bottomly stood by the paper's decision by telling the Willamette Week, "In a roundup of memes and social reaction after Game 3, The Oregonian/OregonLive included several positive and negative takes by others, and the tweet landed with a thud. While it may have missed the mark with some, our job is not to cheerlead; it’s to report what is out there.”

As Bottomly noted, the article wasn't all negative reactions. There were tweets that focused on the Warriors and even some positive tweets about the Blazers. The point of the article was to collect a summary of fan reactions after the game, not to just bash the Blazers.

McGowan cannot cut ties with a newspaper for not writing a puff piece. It would be humiliating for the organization and would set a dangerous precedent. The relationship with the media is important to the league and teams and players alike need to learn to respect that.