LeBron James will play in Miami. Just so there’s no doubt about this being a prediction rather than a followup to his televised announcement on ESPN, check the time it was posted on the website.

Tonight will be about more than a free agent’s announcement, however. It’s another step toward a new age in media and -- regrettably for this former newspaperman -- away from the relevance of print media.

 

 

Today, athletes can control their message. If not in a one-hour special on ESPN, then at least by Twitter, as Kevin Durant did earlier this week. You’re not likely to learn of it when the newspaper hits whatever it hits outside your house in the morning, assuming you even subscribe to a newspaper -- unless you hadn’t watched SportsCenter or conducted another attention-deficit scan of the internet the previous night.

 

James has taken the simultaneous blessing and ...

Many of the interviews I conduct for One on One run much longer than the 40 minutes that air in the show. Then I spend more time trimming the conversation to fit the time allotment than I did conducting it.

Not so with Paul George, the Indiana Pacers’ first-round draft pick. I sat down with George on Thursday, less than an hour after he signed his contract, and knocked out an interview for Sunday’s episode. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to keep him going long enough to fill 40 minutes -- the guy just turned 20 in May -- but it turned out to be no problem. He was a communications major at Fresno State, so he’s talkative enough. And, he was willing to talk about more than his basketball career.

 

Not saying George is the next Reggie Miller, but there are some similarities:

 

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