ESPN has become a gossip network

The other day my buddy said this to me over beers after work, and I couldn't agree more.  Here's what was being reported on Sportscenter while we we sitting in the bar: Rob Lowe (the actor) claimed that he heard Peyton Manning (the NFL quarterback) was going to retire.  News?

All day yesterday the most popular topic on various ESPN shows was that Danny Ainge would consider trading one of the Celtics "Big 3" to build for the future.  Definitely not news.  Ainge said it himself last night:

"It's obvious. They're obvious things. Of course if we get the opportunity to make a trade that will help our team, we'll do it."

I'll get back to the Celtics in a second.  But first, I don't really blame ESPN for turning into E!  It's not their fault.  It's twitter's fault, really.  A short time ago, when sports news happened the folks in Bristol were the one's that broke it.  It's not like that anymore.  Today the twitter universe knows stuff faster than anything else; both legitimate news, as well as gossip and rumors.  If ESPN stuck to real journalism and only reported actual events, they would fall even further behind.  I think they have to do what they're doing in order to stay relevant.

And the Celtics?  Everybody needs to calm down.  The season just started.  There is a LOT of basketball still to be played.  It may well be true that they are too old and slow (Garnett in particular can't jump anymore) to compete with the top teams.  But there is no reason to panic, overreact, and trade somebody right now.  If this team is still under .500 in March, then you start thinking about a trade.  If you're "building for the future" that doesn't help this year anyway, so it would be stupid to give up and start now.