The NBA trade deadline is on Thursday, so you know what that means. You’re about to see bullshit flow unmitigated through all forms of media. You will see agents force feed garbage to reporters. You will see interference, trickeration (not a word, I know), and misdirection. There will be so much gobbledygook out there that you won’t know what to believe.

Case in point – the Sixers and James Harden rumor. On Friday, Shams Charania at The Athletic reported that the Nets are “open to discussing a deal” that would center on Harden and Ben Simmons. They was an “expectation” that both sides were “going to engage in dialogue.”

Fast forward two days and Woj reports this at ESPN with Ramona Shelburne:

When Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey reached out to Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks on Jan. 11, they started with the usual pleasantries of basketball executives still a month away from Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.

Who do you like on our roster? Here’s who I like on yours.

Eventually, Morey spoke up on the true intention of his call.

“What about James?”

“James who?” Marks responded.

The Nets do have two James — Johnson and Harden.

“James Harden.”

“No,” Marks said flatly.

At this point, I’m Bill Lumberg, from Office Space. “Uhhhhh…. yeah.” I’m also Samson Simpson from Half Baked, who spots the Dave Chappelle lie and says “I think you’re bullshitting me.” Only in this case Dave Chappelle is one of Shams or Woj/Ramona, because the two parties are reporting the opposite thing.

In the ESPN story, it’s noted that the above exchange “represents the single, direct communication between Morey and Marks this season,” though Woj doesn’t rule out the possibility of Morey picking up the phone and getting Sean M on line 1 sometime later this week.

Regardless, we find ourselves in the middle of an elite reporter proxy war here. It’s like Estonia vs. Finland but in actuality Russia and the USA are pulling the strings. There is so much information being filtered through Shams and Woj (and Ramona) that the only thing it has achieved is making all of us say “yo… what the hell?” If obfuscation was the goal, the congrats, this is a success. As far as compliance and deference, only the reporters in question can determine each individual level of obsequiousness, though folks on Twitter will try to put the puzzle pieces together. They’ll say “reporter X leaks for organization Y” and “reporter Z carries water for general manager A.”

Either way, this whole Simmons saga has been a fascinating media case study. The folks behind the scenes are trying to create leverage in any way possible. They want to up offers for their players. They want to debase the value of other teams’ players. It’s all part of the game and it’s being played at a high level right now.