IT'S over. Goodnight and goodbye to The Advertiser, the Sunday Mail, the late lamented The News newspaper and to the mighty News Corp - formerly News Ltd – as I retire today after 43-plus years as a basketball writer.

The News gave me the opportunity to pursue my two greatest passions – writing and basketball - for which I forever will be grateful.

Journalism is changing now and I am ready to say farewell to it, maintaining this website but leaving the mainstream after what, for by far the most part, has been a great and richly rewarding experience.

His full farewell on his site

I imagine I wasn't the only person on here who would eagerly await his main weekly column in the past, before the internet brought us more highlights and stories and chatter. I suspect I would've read 2,000+ of his stories since I first started reading when I was younger?

What an epic writing career.

Goodbye, farewell, adieu to News Corp

Wow, the Advertiser and Sunday Mail are now officially dead to me.

That said, they have been on life-support for years but Boti was pretty much the only highlight.

Congrats Boti on a great career and I look forward to many more years of your writings online.

Its fitting that the large percentage of Boti's farewell column is filled with anecdotes of the "good old days" - he never quite progressed to write or see basketball in modern times.

If you compare him with the quality of writing that is evident in the NBA or even in other sports in Australia (AFL), those journalists have embraced analytics, visit countless training sessions to see how teams are actually preparing for the week's game, describe modern tactics, even write about new trends.

Boti was never one to put in the effort to evolve as a journalist in this regard and is writing suffered as a result. I cringe every time I read his articles as he mentions outdated basketball statistics, quotes basketball people from bygone eras, and gives game summaries with very little detail about tactics.

The basketball public in Australia deserve more now and him stepping down is long overdue. Look forward to seeing a fresh new face with a modern day eye for detail and a work ethic that is required to get the cut through in a crowded media landscape.

Agree that his writing style is outdated (though still better than some others in the Australian media), but I respect the work he put in to raise the game's profile. You can't say he didn't love the game. Farewell man

To those saying a fresh face will be good, welcome to the revloving door of random reporters about to "report" basketball to print media in SA.

Boti was solid, he got around the Premier League, he knew players and coaches and expressed a real interest in local ball and NBL.

See what happens, however, thanks for your service Boti.

I won't miss his bias but I'll definitely miss his passion.
(These days his best work is in his blog anyway, so actually I doubt I'll miss his anything because hopefully it will still all be there for a while yet)

Its not even the "scoop" journalism which is most disappointing to me.

How many times in his articles did he mention modern stats like Offensive Efficiency, PER or Rebound % that you can read in NBA articles? These modern stats are calculated quite easily on excel, a calculator or visiting a website like RealGM. Understanding them takes a little effort but you would think well worth it to give your articles some greater quality.

How many times in his articles did he educate the readers about tactics, like how to guard the PNR (Hedge, ICE etc), and then write about what tactics the coaches used and why they used them? The average AFL is well versed in complex tactics (e.g. "Flooding") because the AFL writers take the time to educate the readers. Even simply cutting a little film or creating a GIF and weaving it into his articles (like how Zach Lowe does) would have really 'pulled back the curtain' on what is happening in the game.

When he was talking up a young NBL player's NBA chances, how many NBA personnel did he actually ask about their chances? Did he even make the effort to build relationships with NBA people? For the article on Mitch Creek's NBA chances, Boti quoted an NBL personality from a bygone era who didnt speak specifically on whether the player was on any NBA GMs radars. Those relationships take time and effort to cultivate and obviously he didnt feel the need to do this to give articles the necessary credibility.

In the main Boti's articles were very light on for detail. You might argue that this could have been a result of his writing being edited down to save column inches, however, even when he crossed over to his own website, the writing was not richer - just longer and with more outdated anecdotes/information.

Boti is a legend of the sport, full stop.

Yes his writing style is anachronistic now days, but he was a absolute champion of the sport who fought for column inches for the game. I grew up waiting for his weekly "around the NBL" article each week.

Boti to me is like a champion player who hanged on too long and retired a bit late. We should really forget the last ten years and remember the great work he did for the first 30 years of his career. We couldn't always jump on the net and find the information we wanted.

Cutting out GIFs from games to highlight a particular play or tactic is a good idea...shame the leagues here are (sometimes) hostile to it.

I'm sure there are people with the passion, ability & willingness to put in some serious time & effort into their work, but who is going to pay for that time? Until there is demand in this country for in-depth basketball writing we're stuck with what we have.
Journalism in general is going backwards at the moment, and that becomes even tougher when it's a relatively minor sport.

I totally agree with Luuuc's comment, above. There are many sports journalists in Australia at the moment, and a lot of those are forced into the role by the media they represent, rather than choosing to write about sport. While sports like AFL, NRL and cricket have dedicated journalists who love the game, there are few who have been as dedicated to the game as Boti.

How is Matt McQuade, does anyone know?

I fear for the NBL with the decline in numbers and quality of reporting of our beloved sport. @Crazy Joe Navolla, I understand your passion for the newer types of basketball statistics, and I would encourage you to instigate some posts describing those stats: what they mean and how they apply to the game. I, for one, don't understand a lot of them, principally because I am too busy to find out about them.

Speaking of which, hi ho, hi ho.

Have absolutely no doubt Boti's writing will be missed, if only because, based on what I've seen from the 'back-up' writers at the 'tiser when he's gone on leave, they have little idea about or feel for the sport, with or without the stats the NBA fans here seem to value so greatly.

However, that might prove moot, given the situation.

I'd be fairly confident that Boti's passion for the sport has often played a major role in getting any BB coverage at all in the 'tiser, and with news' media - press and others - slashing the number of journos they employ and the work of the possible 'heirs apparent' to Boti evidencing little knowledge about the sport, let alone enough passion for it to seek out, initiate and 'push' stories about it, I suspect that basketball coverage in the 'tiser will become a rarity.

I hope I'm wrong, but fear that I won't be.

Like his material or not - I do - Boti knows the game and puts current events [and personnel] in historic context.

Based on some of the comments hereabouts, the AFL shouldn't even be reporting Lou Richards' death, for example, let alone revisiting what he did over the years. That, like saying that basketball fans should ignore, or be left in ignorance of, the greats of the past in our sport, is patent nonsense.

Oh, and the journos who are employed are subject to far more direction and control than many of the posters here seem to realise or acknowledge. 'In-depth' stories require time to develop and space to publish, both of which, with increasingly limited resources, are in very short supply. And on top of that a sports journo has to try to somehow get over or around the fetish with'footy'.

Thanks Boti. Job well done. And good luck basketball in the post-Boti era.

As someone who works in the media...Luc is dead right unfortunately.

Pop:

"Oh, and the journos who are employed are subject to far more direction and control than many of the posters here seem to realise or acknowledge. 'In-depth' stories require time to develop and space to publish, both of which, with increasingly limited resources, are in very short supply. And on top of that a sports journo has to try to somehow get over or around the fetish with'footy'."

Again I point out that Boti's writing didnt get any richer in detail or quality when he went to his own platform (website). He didnt improve, he didnt move with the times.

"Like his material or not - I do - Boti knows the game and puts current events [and personnel] in historic context."

He knows the version of the game that was played historically. He hasn't demonstrated he has a knowledge of modern basketball. Therefore its good that he is stepping away.

"I'd be fairly confident that Boti's passion for the sport has often played a major role in getting any BB coverage"

Passion doesnt equal competence. And competence is more of what gets new readers and keeps readers eye balls returning to your articles than just passion alone.

@Crazy Joe Davolla: "Passion doesnt equal competence. And competence is more of what gets new readers and keeps readers eye balls returning to your articles than just passion alone."

Passion doesn't equal cometence, but neither does incompetence, either in terms of basketball knowledge, or English language skills. As has been pointed out by numerous other posters, there are precious few other (especially basketball) journos out there with either.

I'm pretty confident Boti had a great knowledge of today's (he still coaches at a junior level doesn't he?), he just didn't get bogged down with it in his writing. And good on him. He had an audience to cater to and he did, over a long time. That audience was far broader than just NBA or hoops analysts.

A 40-year career writing just about basketball is an amazing achievement. Good luck to him in retirement.

The basketball public in Australia deserve more now and him stepping down is long overdue. Look forward to seeing a fresh new face with a modern day eye for detail and a work ethic that is required to get the cut through in a crowded media landscape.

I think you're very optimistic to assume that there's anyone coming through behind him at the major publications. I think he is a great asset to the sport and his employer, but I'm surprised he kept that job as long as he did when the leagues he's covered have struggled for public support. As others have said, we're likely to get wire stories, or roving reporters doing whatever they can. We'll get game reports with the same personality I could muster writing a script that automatically generates a write-up from a boxscore.

His strengths IMO have been his contacts and willingness to make the calls that get info and stories. I've been impressed that he's managed to embed images in the stories on his site. And write 1,600 pieces for it - most of my clients struggle to write up a page.

You don't see GIFs of play sequences for any sport in major publications - they've come through forums and upstart blogs/networks like Bleacher Report or wherever else. IMO the responsibility for that should've fallen on News Corp hiring interns to cut their teeth, but as it was, they barely published much of what he wrote because the demand hasn't been there. And they're such a dinosaur of a company they didn't have the interest in publishing stuff to their site when the newspaper itself lacked space. You have to talk to him now and then to realise how much of his writing was never used or how often the stories were directed by someone else.

The analysis you're talking about is something you don't see in major papers and doesn't have a big audience. A good part of his audience is made up of occasional fans or general readers - the people that say to me in the office or at the pub "I saw Boti Nagy said the Sixers have a new import?" Flooding as a tactic is about as challenging to understand as a full court press, and something he would've routinely mentioned.

There are loads of opportunities in advanced stats, inline highlights and so on, but I don't put the lack of those in his work on him.

I'd be very surprised if this isn't a backwards step for basketball awareness in South Australia especially.

Stats mean a lot to people that don't understand the game. Boti understands basketball, hence ratio's are useless to him.

Wish him success in the future finally chilling out watching and enjoying my he game he has done so much for.

Thanks Boti. Maybe it is time to say goodbye to the Mow

I think that outside Rugby, Aussie Rules and cricket, there are few sports in this country who had any journo of Boti's enthusiasm, competency and personal contacts for even 5 years, much less the length of time that he actually endured.

volleyball, baseball , athletics, swimming , netball, softball, -- many of which had/have national leagues over the years ( and Olympic and world championship campaigns) but never produced or were supported by such a critic/commentator/confidant/fanboy/enfant terrible as Boti.

For twenty years I had news clippings arrive inside an envelope from Adelaide to me over on the east coast ( in the "heartland" of Oz Basketball), and yet even with the the postal delay of 3-4 days, there would be news of "local" Nsw/Vic/Act based NBL, Seabl and WNBL teams that had yet to hit the Nsw/Vic/Act local newspapers.

The Adelaide fans did not then, and it's clear still don't understand, just what a lucky break the sport had with Boti.

Really sorry to see him give up the regular gig with newscorp.

Its not a void thats going to be filled anytime soon.

I remember the 1990's and 2000s when Grantley Bernard and Stephen Howell would get articles into major market newspapers now - nothing, other than Boti.

Read this
http://www.botinagy.com/blog/the-case-for-missing-media/
and realise that the bloke often knew very well what he was writing about.


As-side from the purely selfish question of where can I read about basketball in a "daily" - is the question of just how big a sigh of relief will some of our "top administrators" have now that there is little chance of their too-regular SNAFU's ever being called out - like this

http://www.botinagy.com/blog/the-more-things-change-/

Really don't like this, but I can't begrudge the bloke for giving the game away as far as newscorp goes.

Thanks for all the work Boti, and please keep the Website up.

The only reason I bought the Advertiser in the late 90's and into the 2000's was to read Boti's articles. He was knowledgeable, witty and as passionate about the game as they come. I especially enjoyed his "around the NBL" column each week.

He never just wrote "vanilla" style articles about games either like many other Aussie basketball journos which were just boring game recaps. If you want stats just look at the boxscore. He always had interesting takes on the games and I found myself agreeing with him many times after he commented on Sixers games I'd seen live or on TV. I'd always have a chuckle at some of his witty comments too or turns of expression.

Thanks Boti for giving so many hoops fans, especially Sixer fans so much great stuff to read. Hope you keep up the writing.

I loved Boti's work. Out of all the journalists that cover basketball, be it in print or tv, Boti was the only person who would actually call someone out for being incompetent or for bad form or whatever.

He told it like it was and didn't pussy foot around the subjects. The Opals and Brendan Joyce being the most recent proof of that. Well done on a great career, Boti, and I look forward to reading your blog.

Yeh, he would would just blatantly arrange to print obvious lies in public newspapers , under his own name , as opposed to those courageous "anon" posters on internet forums. ;)

I'm curious to know when he ever printed anything knowing it not to be true. He might not have been right every time, but he never printed something knowing it was wrong.

Boti called it as he saw it, which was great, but he wasn't the only one to do it. Grantley Bernard, Stephen Howell, Andrew Johnstone - all the top basketball writers of times gone by did the same. Tim Keeble in Wollongong does now too.

Farewell Boti - always enjoyed reading your stuff and hope to continue to do so in your blog. I enjoyed your stuff because, for me, sport is about fun and emotional engagement. That's why I watch it, play it and what I got when I read your stuff.

Personally, the complicated stats and so forth aren't why I read the sports section of the newspapers. They're KPIs developed for business purposes. Trying to read articles full of them is like trying to read the ASX stock reports. I choose not to read those stock reports because they're boring as batshit.

Exactly. To the average newspaper-reading sports follower whose main interest might not even be basketball, the story & the drama is more likely to be of interest than the minute details. It's also more likely to draw a person to a game.

Not that many people care that Casey Prather's perimeter shots are more likely to come from the right of court than the left, but when he's involved in a little scuffle with a player and responds but posterising him with a dunk, that's something everyone can appreciate.

I agree Boti was a basketball journalist not a basketball coach or scout he's writing for a broad and general audience very few people other than absolute basketball nuts care to read about +/- stats and win shares and all that other stuff.

In fact that would be a good way to go about losing your job as no sports editor would allow stuff like that to go to print in a daily newspaper designed to be skimmed over whilst eating breakfast.

Boti's columns should always have been read with that in mind he's trying to get the masses into basketball not turn them away from it and I think he did an exceptional job over his career in adding a bit of colour to what usually amounts to pretty vanilla basketball reportage in this country.

I used to only get Thursday's paper for Boti's weekly 'Around The NBL' column and once that disappeared I stopped buying the paper altogether. Since then obviously with the internet newspapers are no longer one of the main sources of news and information so have shrunk and with that contraction a lot of Boti's articles don't even make it into the paper anymore as that space can be used for more footy or more advertising as these old institutions struggle to stat afloat.

I'm surprised he was able to hang on as long as he did there but made it through to 67 and can now retire and just do it for fun now on his blog. Good luck to him and congratulations on a great career we'll never see his like again.

Because he said he was 14 when he started as a copyboy.

That would make him 57 then Zodiac

That's true my mistake that would make him 57 not 67. So either quit or retrenched and maybe he's decided to go into early retirement.

And it wasn't all at one place he started at The News which was Rupert Murdoch's paper a rival to The Advertiser but when Murdoch bought out the company that owned The Advertiser in 1987 for a brief period when he owned both Boti moved from The News to the The Advertiser and later that same year Rupert sold The News to another proprietor until that paper folded in 1992.

So , Advertiser sports writer , Rob Greenwood wrote a story today. Joey Wright having surgery...
( adelaidenow 15minutes ago.)

Boti may not have had all the modern bells and whistles but he is probably the only high profile basketball-only writer in Australia, and his retirement will leave a hole that will probably not be filled any time soon.

I'm curious to know when he ever printed anything knowing it not to be true. He might not have been right every time, but he never printed something knowing it was wrong.

As I understand it, contentious material was always run by a house lawyer. That sort of thing came up in conversations I had with him over the years.

If you compare Boti's recent work to the like of Olgun's (who, in my opinion, is hands down the best basketball journo in Australia) it really highlights how far behind Boti has fallen. A great career nonetheless even if he did become a grumpy old man on twitter.

Has Olgun written much for print? I think your style would develop differently if you were constantly watching your content trimmed. Also, I'm very sympathetic to old dogs and new tricks.

Didn't Olgun just publish that crap report about Randle not being offered a contract? Also read a story he wrote the other day that seemed to indicate he rated Patty as a better defensive player than Delly.

Full marks for turning out the content, but that Randle story was hurtful to the 36ers brand in the eyes of casual supporters and definitely not the whole truth.

I agree whether Olgun's article was damaging to the Sixers or not is irrelevant the issue was he was clearly being fed a line from Randle's agent who was using Olgun to try and get the fans worked up and strongarm the club.

The fact he took his agent's word and published a couple of untruths without fact checking and speaking to the other side suggests he's either got a long way to go in journalism or he rushed the story thinking he had a big scoop and wanted the clicks which trumped the facts.

yep ,,, I totally agree anonymous, it was a very obviously poor job by Olgun