Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here but I’ve seen better conceived and more deeply researched collections of statements scrawled on the walls of a rest stop men’s room than his most recent article. In his latest soap box tirade, clearly meant to be read through a megaphone to an angry mob, Wojnarowski uses the point guard dust-up during the Celtics/Hornets game this past Sunday night as a platform to both lambaste Rajon Rondo as an ungrateful fool despite his infinite good fortune and to enshrine Chris Paul into permanent basketball sainthood. This is one of the paragraphs in the story. I am not making this up:

“Beyond the charming smile and gentlemanly disposition, Paul has a tenacious will and a terrific temper. Beyond it all, he’s downright ferocious.”

Good lord. “Charming smile”? “Gentlemanly disposition”? “Tenacious will”, “terrific temper” AND “downright ferocious”?  At this point, Wojnarowski could have slipped in “extremely buff without a shirt” and “in possession of soft brown eyes that will melt your heart” and I wouldn’t have even blinked.

Later in the article, Wojnarowski heaps praise onto Paul for his apparently charitable decision to extend his contract with the Hornets a year ago. Woj’s words: “It speaks to Paul’s character, his loyalty, that he signed a three-year extension with New Orleans in 2008.”

What? Child, please. First of all, it was a four year contract extension (the fourth year being a player’s option) with the rate of pay set at the maximum allowable under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement (starting at 25 percent of the salary cap for the first year of the extension, with 10 percent raises thereafter).

Let me repeat: it was a max contract. Bearing this in mind, I consider it a bit of a stretch to claim that Paul’s agreement to the extension makes him the equivalent of Mother Theresa in high-tops. It simply makes him a good businessman, a young player getting his first big payday set in ink as soon as possible.

In addition, Wojnarowski says of Hornets owner George Shinn: “The NBA pushed him into New Orleans, understanding it would’ve been a PR nightmare to abandon the post-Katrina city.” Sure, right. Except the same exact principle applied to Chris Paul when he decided to re-up with New Orleans last year, not even three years removed from Hurricane Katrina, with the city and surrounding area still largely in ruins. Paul’s shiny reputation would have suffered a considerable hit if he’d chosen to leave New Orleans at that point. Based on all of the above, it was a no-brainer for Paul to re-sign early with the Hornets. To ascribe noble intentions beyond that is simply ridiculous.

Of course, in typical Wojnarowski fashion, the remainder of the article is peppered with numerous quotes and inferences from a gaggle of anonymous tipsters, unspecified sources and mysterious “witnesses”. It’s a weak form of journalism in which the writer uses the musings of people who lack the conviction to put their names behind their words to bolster his points. Here are some excerpts that serve as prime examples:

“The procession of trash talk, sources said, pushed into the personal when Rondo was heard to tell Paul, ‘I’ve got a ring, and you’re never gonna win one.’”

“As they traded technical fouls at the Boston Garden, as emotions escalated, sources said Rondo declared that Paul wished he could be him, suggesting that his frustration dripped with envy.”

“If Rondo had to trade in K.G., Pierce, Ray and Rasheed for the guys that Chris plays with [in New Orleans], I guarantee that you wouldn’t be seeing Rondo get a $55 million contract,” one Hornets source said.” (hey, at least he finally shared something about one of his precious sources)

“After the game Sunday night, Celtics [sic] guard Ray Allen walked into the Hornets’ locker room, witnesses said, and all but expressed his embarrassment for Rondo’s increasingly tired act.”

What exactly was said? Without the benefit of what was said by Allen, or even reasonably paraphrased, Wojnarowski’s spoon-fed interpretation means nothing to me. Also, who are these people that are saying these things? Players? Coaches? Front office personnel? Fellow media members? Popcorn vendors? Because it makes a big difference to the reader in who is saying the what, especially with regards to that last excerpt highlighted above.

Speaking of which…If I understand correctly, Wojnarowski is claiming that Ray Allen went into the Hornets’ locker room after the game and essentially ridiculed his teammate, his starting point guard, to the opposing team. Based on my own personal experience in watching Ray Allen conduct himself both on and off the court and, yes, in the locker room pre- and post-game, I find that statement very hard to believe.

Of course, it might have been easier to believe if Wojnarowski had reported this particular bit of news as first-hand knowledge, having actually witnessed of the event himself. Or, at the very least, he could have specified what type of witnesses these were (team personnel? cleaning crew?). Instead, he makes a bold statement about what most would consider uncharacteristic behavior by Ray Allen but has absolutely nothing to back it up with except for the generic account of nameless, unspecified, unaffiliated “witnesses”.

Hmm. Let me try that approach on for size and see how it fits. Sources indicate that this article is the stupidest possible collection of words about basketball every assembled in the history of humanity. Witnesses said you could lock a bunch of monkeys in a room with a row of typewriters for ten years and yet they’d never put together an article as lousy as this one. A highly respected member of the front office of a Western Conference team said those monkeys would certainly be smart enough to temper their praise of Chris Paul in order to preserve some perceived level of objectivity with their readers.

Last point: Towards the end of the article, Wojnarowski includes this curious tidbit:

“For now, Paul has never been so frustrated. He has no patience for losing. Baseball season still isn’t over and the losing, the non-competitiveness of his team, is taking its toll. He lost his cool with Rondo, and appeared to swipe at Al Harrington’s head on the floor while chasing a loose ball Monday. Paul had no use for Rondo, but the partial noogie that he gave Harrington, a friend, was clearly a misdemeanor of passion.”

Okay, let me make sure I get this straight. If Chris Paul gets into a confrontation with Rajon Rondo, it’s because Rondo is a punk partaking in outrageous trash talk (Wojnarowski’s invisible sources say so, so it must be true!). If Paul smacks his friend Al Harrington in the head during a game the very next night, it’s because Paul cares so much about winning. To the more casual observer, it might seem that a player who has confrontations with opponents on back-to-back nights and even has to be held back by coaches from entering an opposing locker room to continue that confrontation after the game…well, some folks might consider that particular player to be the problem.

At this point, I find myself reflecting on the work of Marc Spears, the former Celtics beat writer from the Boston Globe, now in the employ of Yahoo! Sports. This past Monday, Marc Spears spent his day beating the local media (and everyone else) in reporting that Rajon Rondo had signed a five year extension with the Celtics. Meanwhile, Yahoo! Sports colleague Wojnarowski was busy penning a piece that was the equivalent of lighting a thousand tiny candles around his Chris Paul shrine. Just thought it was all worth mentioning.