I hate the fact that I’m writing about Howard Eskin for a second-straight day, but the Crossing Broad ethos requires us to call out fraudulent media behavior where necessary, and it’s been a busy week in law enforcement. The stench is pungent and stings the nostrils as it permeates the Delaware Valley.

Background:

On Tuesday, Sixers GM Daryl Morey did his season-ending press conference. Howard hopped on the Zoom call, the Sixers PR staff called on him about halfway through the session, and he proceeded to ask three-straight questions about Ben Simmons and his future with the team. He was trying to get Morey to answer a question that he’s probably not going to answer. It was very Howard-like in the sense that The King often asks the “hard questions” even if we all know the subject in question is going to dodge them. Some people appreciate Howard for doing this, and there’s certainly a place for it in the local media landscape, but oftentimes it’s vapid, and on this day it resulted in Anthony Gargano dismissing Eskin’s Q&A portion of the presser as “stupid grandstanding.

Fast forward to this morning, and I’m driving down route 309 while listening to Angelo. He brings Howard on, who proceeds to blow sunshine up his own butt while taking credit for the Ben Simmons line of questioning:


How much horse shit can be packed into a three-minute radio clip?

First of all, nobody was “grilling” anybody,” so relax, Angelo. If something of substance came from the session then Cataldi wouldn’t cut the soundbite off to say “blah blah blah there was no real answer there.” Congrats, you played yourself.

Another truth is that Morey pretty much laughed off Eskin’s third question and there wasn’t a “long pause” between first question and answer. The Zoom video froze and then picked up again after three seconds, which you can see if you go back and watch it.

And when Howard asks why it took “24 minutes” for the question to be asked, that is totally false. Keith Pompey actually asked about Ben Simmons at the 4:39 mark, almost 20 minutes before Eskin asked his questions. When Howard was called on by the Sixers PR staff, he even credited Pompey for the question and said that he wanted to go back to “when Keith talked about the future of Ben Simmons with this team,” which you can hear in this video clip:

“If somebody else asked it, I would have bailed out,” he told Angelo this morning.

Well Keith did ask the question. And Howard didn’t bail out. He followed up, made reference to Pompey’s approach, and then told a different story on Wednesday morning, making it seem like he was the only one with the balls to ask about Ben Simmons even though it had been done 20 minutes prior.

By the way, the reason Howard didn’t get his turn until later in the availability is because the Sixers typically give first preference to active beat writers and objective media members who have been on these Zoom calls throughout the season. Pompey, John Clark, Ky Carlin, Kyle Neubeck, etc. In a normal setting, Howard would have shouted above everyone else to get his questions in, but on Zoom he’s at the mercy of Sixers staffers who pick and choose as they please.

And finally, when Howard says “Daryl Morey has never really made any big trades in his career,” (other than James Harden), that’s proof that he has no idea what he’s talking about. You have got to be kidding me. Daryl Morey is KNOWN for making trades. That is literally what his reputation is. We’re talking about a guy who made transactions involving Kyle Lowry, Tracy McGrady, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Jeremy Lin, Rafer Alston, and Clint Capela. He got the Sixers out of the Al Horford contract and swapped Josh Richardson for Seth Curry. We can debate Morey’s success over the years, but there’s no question he’s a trigger puller who will do a Ben Simmons move if it makes sense.

Anyway, it’s all bullshit. The King loves to blow sunshine up his own butt. The sunshine then travels to his head and inflates his ego, like a grotesque photosynthesis.