Quickie: Tiger Hasn't Changed At All

I had to take the lead of today's SN column to tee off on this Tiger "press conference," on a few levels:

(1) Tiger: What a fool. This kind of "no questions" insulation is what got him into trouble in the first place. Hard to believe his advisors were OK with that.

(2) The golf media: Any reporter that is hand-picked by Tiger to watch his press conference should probably be taken off the Tiger beat -- if not the golf beat -- by their editor.

Compounding the ridiculousness is that these hand-picked media toadies aren't even allowed to ask Tiger what would invariably be softball questions! They don't even get to stand in the same room as Tiger and his flunkies. The "media" has to stand in a side room, and they don't get to ask questions. One more time: What self-respecting editor would let their reporter be used like that?

I appreciate the need to show the statement live on TV -- it's news. Check that: It's p.r. performed by a newsworthy subject. (Then again, that's 98 percent of journalism sourcing.)

But I hope it comes with some side commentary from the media folks that don't go for the easy "Tiger redemption" narrative that Team Tiger is surely banking on (and golf media would love to be able to pick up, leaving the unseemly storyline behind -- not that they were covering it particularly aggressively, if at all).

As you can see: I'm a bit fired up about this.

More in today's column: OK, I'm ready to move the Cavs ahead of the Magic as my team to beat in the East. Jamison defends Rashard Lewis really well, and that's what Cleveland needed.

It's hard to pick between Vonn, Shaun and Shani as the biggest star of the Olympics yesterday. Vonn, probably, if only because of the "comeback" storyline. But Shaun might just be the biggest name at the Games. Shani is just effective, and doesn't embrace the p.r. game nearly as effectively or intensely as Vonn and Shaun do.

Purdue gets a win that might put them in consideration for me to pick them into the Final Four; Northwestern gets a loss that is so bad that it's almost better than barely missing the Tournament -- losing a relatively easy must-win at home to Penn State should disqualify any bubble team. Ridiculous.

Complete column here. More later.

-- D.S.