"KD well past tired of talking about LeBron"

From ESPN.com

Analysis by John Kim in SRM 334

In every sport, there are elite players and the media always try and compare to determine who the best player is. In recent years, LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder are considered one of the best players in the National Basketball Association. Even though they were compared for a few years now, the debate has fired up even more this season due to the fact that Kevin Durant is considered by many experts to likely take the Most Valuable Player Award after James has received it the past two seasons (Wallace, 2014). After the endless debate about these two players and the constant questions that they receive, Kevin Durant said that he is tired of being questioned about James. However, James told the press that he has no issues addressing questions about Durant (2014).

The media has been comparing elite athletes for a while now and it could be too much for both the athletes and the audiences. Even though many athletes are not too thrilled about the media asking them questions about other athletes constantly, the media keeps bombarding athletes about other players or potential rivals. The media’s intentions for comparing athletes could be to relate to the audience and promote drama; if players are compared and the media creates a “rivalry” between the players to relate to other audiences that are not so interested in sports, it could cause the audience to be interested. Also, sports audiences are interested on what the athletes say about their rivals, so they will tune into interviews, thus creating more views benefiting the media. 

This article is relevant to our course because we have constantly talked about the drama that the media creates and how it attracts both audiences that are extremely passionate about sports or not so passionate about sports. By releasing stories that include rivalries and dramas, the media relates to the audience and attracts them to what interests them. Even though Kevin Durant stated that he was tired of being questioned about James, the media will not stop asking questions about James or other athletes because people want to hear what Durant has to say about other players that he is compared with.