Just as there are sometimes games of musical chairs among managers and coaches in the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball, the same exists in journalism.
Recently there has been a lot of turnover in terms of which writers cover the major hoops beats in the New York/New Jersey area.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we know:
**NBA writer Jonathan Abrams left The New York Times for Grantland.com. That leaves Howard Beck — who had this interesting piece today on covering the NBA lockout — as the Times’ primary NBA writer, although former Bergen Record Knicks (and tennis and golf) writer Steve Adamek has been contributing pieces to the Times.
**With Adamek no longer at The Record, our friend Al Iannazzone has moved over to the Knicks from the Nets. Andy Vasquez will cover the Nets for the folks in Hackensack. It remains unclear if The Record will continue to cover the Nets once they move to Brooklyn. (Will folks in New Jersey care about the Brooklyn Nets?)
**At the New York Post, it looks like Tim Bontemps will cover the Nets, replacing longtime writer Fred Kerber, although Kerber is still contributing bylines.
**Our friend Chris Sheridan left ESPN.com to start up SheridanHoops.com, for which I’m a contributor. It appears like Jared Zwerling and Ian Begley will cover the Knicks for ESPNNewYork.com.
**On the high school beat, MSG Varsity scored a major coup by taking both Mike Kinney and Gregg Lerner away from The Star-Ledger. Kinney and Lerner covered boys and girls hoops, respectively, over a period of many years and their institutional memories are tremendous. There’s no denying that’s a big loss for the Ledger, and a big gain for the folks at MSG.
