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There was a brief debate amongst us here at SRI about whether or not to bother posting this, but ultimately we decided that we’re not in the business of passing judgment or trying to break stories as a site, simply to aggregate the most interesting/controversial/informative/funny sports radio interviews each week. To that end, we bring you the phone call Terez Owens had with 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston late last week about the story his sports gossip website ‘broke’ regarding an alleged affair between LeBron James’ mother, Gloria James, and Cavaliers guard Delonte West. The court of public opinion seems to have spoken in favor of Owens’ being a liar and untrustworthy, but again, we’re not here to pass judgment, just bring you the interview. You decide for yourself. Before being hung up on, Owens joined 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston to talk about getting a cease and desist letter from James’ attorneys, how that wasn’t frightening to him because of the trust he has in his sources, the specifics of what he’s been reporting, what his sources tell him in terms of the timeline of events, how LeBron’s particularly poor play in Game 5 could perhaps be traced to the incident, and why he thinks the public should trust him and his sources. For what it’s worth, when addressing that final question, Owens was hung up on. Take a listen.
On if it’s frightening to get a cease and desist letter from a high profile attorney:
“Normally it’s not, we’re starting to shake the lines right now a little bit, know what I’m saying? But at the end of the day, we’re a sports gossip site, we trust our sources, we’re just doing what we do every day. You know, we’re just reporting what we hear, so at the end of the day, who knows we’ll see what happens but we’re just going to let it ride.”
On what exactly it is that he and his blog are reporting occurred between LeBron James’ mother and Delonte West:
“Okay so it was Thursday night right after the game. Well, it might have actually been Friday morning, but it probably like L.A. time right around like 12, 1 o’clock in the morning. We got an email from a source we’ve used before, he’s never done me wrong, he’s always been pretty right on. And I get this email, and just like all you guys, I read it and kind of went like what the hell…You’re like okay whatever. Because first of all, I gamble personally so I’ve watched the whole series. Well first of all, that was my first lesson – to stop betting against the Celtics to tell you the truth, you guys are killing us every night. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t the same LeBron out there and I’m not the same person to say it was the same in Game 6 and all. But what I think it is, it was Game 5, he quit and then he couldn’t recover from then on. You’re not going to go into Boston in Game 6…Game 5 was a big game in that series. That was like a legacy game for him. And at the end of the day, that was the one that I saw the most non-LeBron. Even though I thought it was all Games 4, 5 and 6, he was definitely gone in Game 5.”
On whether the email said the incident occurred before Game 5:
“Well basically what it said was our source was saying that his uncle was a general contractor at the Q and he knows a lot of the guys around there, he;s been around there awhile and he threw it at us. And basically it was supposedly at the MVP party, it was supposedly pretty crazy. I actually just did Cleveland radio and they were saying that the MVP party got like really crazy. Allegedly liquor was flowing, everything got kind of crazy. Allegedly that’s the night that everything happened so you guys can kind of see the rest.”
On what he knows about what exactly happened that night after the liquor was supposedly flowing at the MVP party:
“You know what, I don’t know details like that. I just know the rumor, you know what I mean? And then I don’t know if you guys saw Calvin Murphy, Calvin Murphy pretty much went on the record…Calvin Murphy is no David Robinson, let’s not get it twisted, but at the end of the day, he still talks to people. He’s got his own show for some reason on ESPN Houston, so someone’s paying him to do reporting and whatever. But he went on the record before I did, I wasn’t the first one to put it out, but at the end of the day, he kind of, he was a bigger person to actually confirm it for us.”
On what other stories he and his sources have actually correctly broken:
“We broke the Kim Kardashain Reggie Bush story way back. I know there’s been like five rounds of this story, but this was way back when they first broke up. We were probably 10 days before any big media broke it out. Not only did we break the Kim Kardashian story, we broke it about the Kanye West and the whole Kanye West incident didn’t come out for another 9 months after the actual story broke.”
On what his source inside the Q that he’s relying on has actually done to prove his credibility:
“I trust my source. That’s pretty much…”
The guys at 98.5 then hung up on Owens claiming that they simply didn’t believe him.
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