Plain Dealer's New Cavs Beat Reporter: Chris Haynes

[col63onel]

Just sickens me that a talentless hack can get a job like that, even if it is as the 3rd guy, when in all honestly, I can think of plenty of people here who would be better suited..

That I will not disagree with.

I could never stand the cadence of Fedor's voice. Maybe it is because he had such awful opinions, his voice became associated with bad stuff. At least as a writer, I don;t have to hear him speak.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Just sickens me that a talentless hack can get a job like that, even if it is as the 3rd guy, when in all honestly, I can think of plenty of people here who would be better suited..

I've already marked you down as a reference.

 

[Damage]

Stick Fedor as a R&D guy and he's ok. Dude does do a ton of homework. Problem is his conclusions are beyond delusional and making him an on air talent is contemptible given his vocal chords.

 

[TheAdmin]

Haynes is the real deal. Pairing him with Lloyd will give the Cavs 2 of the best beat guys in the nation. Cavs coverage just got a whole lot better.

 

[elcheato]

We don't know that, I will say if Spears of Yahoo is a fan you all should be. Yahoo has been the best beat reporters the NBA had for a while. For how the PD has been in terms of over all coverage and news reporting, they scored a top guy somehow and I am more shocked he took the job than how many applied.

Covering the team that has LeBron, for the cities largest newspaper/media group or whatever they call themselves now is an amazing opportunity for him. Look what it did for Windhorst (Yes, he's an excellent writer and gets quite a few scoops so Haynes will have to be that too), after covering LeBron he has been become ESPN's go to NBA guy, other than maybe Marc Stein. Haynes is going to get a lot of national exposure, and it should be a stepping stone for his career. Seems like an opportunity he couldn't pass up to me, unless the pay is lower than what he was getting in Portland, but I would doubt that

 

[Damien O'Connel]

Does anyone else wonder "what could have been" if Windy had gone to SI or Yahoo? sigh....

 

[theSTEREO.]

Does anyone else wonder "what could have been" if Windy had gone to SI or Yahoo? sigh....

SI would've sent him into obscurity. They've got good guys, but just don't get that much exposure. The Lebron / Lee Jenkins piece was kinda out of left field.

Yahoo would've been a good move for him too, if it was even an option.

He's done pretty well for himself at ESPN though. Doubt he's disappointed.

 

[Damien O'Connel]

SI would've sent him into obscurity. They've got good guys, but just don't get that much exposure. The Lebron / Lee Jenkins piece was kinda out of left field.

Yahoo would've been a good move for him too, if it was even an option.

He's done pretty well for himself at ESPN though. Doubt he's disappointed.

Oh I agree, he has done well. I was just looking at this from a purely selfish perspective. Would have been great if he could operate outside of the hype machine.

 

[kevin02]

So he's from Portland... I wonder how long it takes him to realize Kyrie is better than Lillard.

 

[shoes22]

Does anyone else wonder "what could have been" if Windy had gone to SI or Yahoo? sigh....

Given ESPN's big media presence among multiple platforms, I bet they were willing to pay Windhorst much more than any competitor.

 

[kovanovich]

It'll be interesting what type of perspective Haynes brings to his Cavs' coverage, in view of his time with Portland.

Damian Lillard ‏@Dame_Lillard 1h
Congrats to @ChrisBHaynes on his new job with the Cleveland Cavaliers! Gave him up for a first round pick

@WillTheThrillB5...Congrats bro

It seems he'll be hitting the ground running by appearing on cleveland.com tomorrow (Thursday) at 11:30 to "talk about any more potential moves by the Cavs."

http://www.cleveland.com/sportsinsider/index.ssf/2014/09/watch_sports_insider_with_gues.html

In addition to Lloyd (who I think is a very good reporter) and Haynes and the new PD team, I guess all the rest of the veteran reporters will be back, like The Bullshit Whisperer (valuable as the new mouthpiece of the Cavs), Finnan (has covered the team for 20 years), and of course Tom Withers and others. It will be an embarrassment of riches compared to what we have mostly had the last several years.

Lurking in the background is Brian Windhorst. In his podcast with Bill Simmons this summer, Windy asked Simmons outright for advice as to what he should do now that LeBron was back in Cleveland. Simmons said he should move back to his condo in downtown Cleveland and focus on covering the Cavs. I don't suspect he will actually do this, but I imagine Windhorst will break a major story or two on the Cavs this season.

 

[kevin02]

Apparently he challenges the occasional player to a game of 1 on 1 from what Portland fans are saying... So we have that to look forward to.

 

[czvo]

SI would've sent him into obscurity. They've got good guys, but just don't get that much exposure. The Lebron / Lee Jenkins piece was kinda out of left field.

Yahoo would've been a good move for him too, if it was even an option.

He's done pretty well for himself at ESPN though. Doubt he's disappointed.

SI still puts out a lot of quality content. They just don't beat you over the head with it the way ESPN does with even their most mediocre crap.

 

[Simmy]

Stick Fedor as a R&D guy and he's ok. Dude does do a ton of homework. Problem is his conclusions are beyond delusional and making him an on air talent is contemptible given his vocal chords.

I always hold my breath whenever I hear him discuss free agency pursuits and trades. I feel like his intentions are always good, but his conclusions are nonsensical.

And for those that have 53 seconds of their life to waste..

 

[mhi]

My guess is they received a lot of good candidates. I mean it doesn't take a genius to realize that covering Lebron is gonna put you in the national spotlight and get you paid. Windhorst wrote the blueprint on that.

Hopefully he can join Lloyd and Withers (and Windhorst, who am sure ESPN will assign him more to the Cavs/Lebron as opposed to the general (read: Big Market teams) league like he is now after they introduced Heat Index) as the top sources for team info.

Speaking of Heat Index, I wonder what ESPN does with that ? Am a fan of Mike Wallace so I hope they just turn it into a TrueHoop blog and keep him.