Tim Cato - The Athletic - Dallas, USA

<p>We prowl the halls of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team in the capable hands of Tim Cato (<a href='https://bit.ly/2V2MTB5'>@tim_cato</a>), a staff writer with The Athletic. Tim got into sports reporting as a 17-year-old fan, but now he’s seen too much and the fandom has melted away. Still, he loves his job reporting on the huge characters, power dynamics and colorful feature stories the NBA has to provide - even finding what’s interesting about banal sports cliches and taking a trip to Slovenia.</p> <p>Publications featured: SB Nation, Mavs Moneyball, The Athletic</p> <p>Countries featured: USA, Slovenia</p> <p>Tim discusses getting into sports reporting at 17 as a way to go to basketball games (5:44), the strange internet beast that is/was SB Nation (10:19), going from exploited free labor to staffer at SB Nation (16:17), The Athletic making a splash on the national sports scene (23:24), a breakdown of what it’s really like reporting on a basketball team (27:19), cliche sports questions and answers (31:10), losing his sports fandom (40:14), the larger-than-life Mark Cuban (47:56), telling the story of Mavericks star Luka Dončić by going to Slovenia (55:17), and the lightning round (1:01:32).</p> <p> </p> <p>Here are links to some of the things we talked about:</p> <p>Mavs Moneyball (yes it still exists) - <a href='https://bit.ly/3lecEcw'>https://bit.ly/3lecEcw</a></p> <p>SB Nation - <a href='https://bit.ly/39igQWa'>https://bit.ly/39igQWa</a></p> <p>Tim’s story on cliche questions and answers - <a href='https://bit.ly/3fCQ9wk'>https://bit.ly/3fCQ9wk</a></p> <p>A clip of Mark Cuban on a StairMaster - <a href='https://bit.ly/3l6xR7W'>https://bit.ly/3l6xR7W</a></p> <p>Tim’s story from Slovenia - <a href='https://bit.ly/364rXQA'>https://bit.ly/364rXQA</a></p> <p>D Magazine - <a href='https://bit.ly/39fYi8Y'>https://bit.ly/39fYi8Y</a></p> <p>Texas Monthly’s “What if they had an election and everyone came?” - <a href='https://bit.ly/3m7yoYH'>https://bit.ly/3m7yoYH</a></p> <p>Jane Mayer’s