Yesterday evening, ESPN was reporting that a 3-way deal was in the works between the Chicago Bulls, Portland Trailblazers and the Utah Jazz. The primary pieces in the deal would send Kirk Hinrich to Portland, Tyrus Thomas to the Jazz, and Carlos Boozer to the Bulls. There was not mention in the report as to who the Trailblazers would be giving up in the deal and to whom. Not long after they published that report, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports tweeted that no deal was in the works. Early this morning, Yahoo did post that ESPN was reporting this deal, but did not confirm anything.

ESPN in recent years has taken a back seat to other sports related sites when it comes to breaking news. Ken Rosenthal has obliterated Peter Gammons and Jayson Stark when it comes to free agent signings and the Trade Deadline in July. While Jay Glazer at FoxSports and Adam Schefter (formerly of NFL Net now with ESPN) were breaking stories, Chris Mortensen was giving us reports on how Eli Manning would miss the first month of the NFL season (never backing down) even though Eli said he was playing that following Sunday. For the most part, they have had the edge in basketball news with Chad Ford, Marc Stein, Ric Bucher, and Chris Broussard. However, this past offseason, Adrian Wojnarowski has been beating everyone to the punch on mega-deals and free agent signings. He was the first to report the Michael Curry firing, and the first FA agreements of Ben Gordan and Charlie Villanueva. ESPN’s Chris Broussard was the first to report something that LeBron apparently didn’t say.

ESPN is always very careful as to how the publish reports, especially those that they break. They typically do not indicate specifically where their sources originate from. Wojo at least stated that he had spoken with a source from the Bulls that said nothing no deal was discussed. ESPN was even floating the deal on their crawl all night, as to make it seem like the deal was imminent, but updated the article late last night and has it speak more as speculation. Someone from an NBA front office may very well have told them of a deal being talked about, but rumors fly through all NBA teams front offices.

Yahoo is also very careful as to how they break a story, but they get very specific. When they first reported that the Celtics offered Rondo and Allen for Stuckey, Prince and Hamilton, they pointed to the fact that it was discussed by lower management and that GM’s Joe Dumars and Danny Ainge had not spoken to one another.

ESPN sees the numbers that YahooSports has been getting as of late, and how they are starting to leave ESPN.com in the dust. They know that Yahoo is becoming the place that a lot of people are going to get accurate and first-hand knowledge. Maybe if ESPN wasn’t too busy making their reporters into TV stars, they could actually report accurate information on their website, and be more confident with their sources.

ESPN did not make up this report, and it very well could be accurate, but recent history has shown otherwise. Just looking at the deal makes very little sense. First of all, it gives no indication as to who the Blazers would be giving up to receive Hinrich. It also makes little sense for the Jazz to trade for Thomas, as they are trying to keep Paul Millsap, and they both play the same position. The Jazz would be better of keeping Boozer for the year and having him come off the books next season and be in the market for a FA.

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