Esquire’s Scott Raab was just trying to make a Moby Dick reference when he called LeBron James the “Whore of Akron.”
That wasn’t a good enough excuse.
In response to his comments, Raab received the following e-mail from Miami Heat director of media relations Tim Donovan.
Scott:
You are no longer welcome at our building and will not be credentialed moving forward.
Tim
Raab is writing about the Heat daily for Esquire, and he is also in the midst of writing a book scheduled for 2012 relesea about LeBron in Cleveland, his move to Miami, and Raab’s experiences as a Clevelander regarding such.
Still, while Raab is annoyed that he has been denied access, and that the decision has not been overturned by the NBA league office, he doesn’t see this as bad news.
“I didn’t expect access to LeBron. … I’m no pissant that just started writing about sports,” Raab told TheBigLead. “But I don’t want to portray myself as someone who is being victimized – ‘oh my god my book project is at risk!’ Not at all, far from it. In some ways, this is better for me.”
It’s hard for Raab to imagine that he’s particularly surprised about any of this, given that “Whore of Akron” was just the tip of the iceberg as far as his Tweets about LeBron have been concerned.
Tim Frank of the league office acknowledged such.
“There’s an expectation of professionalism on both sides in the team-media relationship, and the posts on Mr. Raab’s twitter account clearly fall short of that standard.”
#WhoreOfAkron is now an active hashtag on Twitter.
