“Making $200 Million to $150M”: Patrick Beverley Uses ‘Skip Bayless-Russell Westbrook’ Case to Explain How Media Narrative Hurts Players

Patrick Beverley recently sat down with GQ Sports to do their popular celebrity segment ‘Actually Me’. In the segment, celebrities usually go undercover to answer questions about themselves on social media platforms anonymously. A question that stuck out during the Pat Bev interview was about biased comments from the basketball media at the expense of certain players and how it could hurt players money and even their NBA seats on certain occasions.

Beverley completely agreed with the fan’s take, doubling down on how media narratives, especially negative ones, have real-life consequences for players. He highlighted one of Skip Bayless’ comments to point out the issue.

Patrick Beverley addresses Skip Bayless’ comments on Russell Westbrook

While sitting down with GQ for the ‘Actually Me’ segment, Patrick Beverly was asked about how comments like Skip Bayless’ statement regarding Russell Westbrook can hurt a player’s reputation. Bayless once said on national TV, “I would give Patrick Beverly a ring and not Russel Westbrook. I just don’t like him.”

The question that the Twitter user, featured on the GQ segment, raised to Beverley was as follows, “How are these media shows allowed to blatantly slander a player with extreme bias!”

Beverley handled the question with maturity, responding with, “Me, you know, on my pod, we had a real big debate about this. How the media kind of controls the narrative of players…It can help or hurt a player when it comes from making $200 million to $150 million if you are in that range. Or from being in the NBA or not being in the NBA.” Beverley does have a point as we have recently seen how inaccurate reporting has led many players to call out reporters to check their sources.

The age of the new media

In basketball, more so than any other sport, a lot of players have their own shows and podcasts. Players like Draymond Green have called the player-run media, “New media”. The situation which mostly arose out of Covid-19, has grown into quite a large industry.

The reason for the rapid growth has been that the players have started clarifying their stands and opinions on things without giving official comments to media personalities. With the intermediary removed, the players can now be more vocal and honest, and also in turn get to control some part of their own narratives.