Etan Thomas (above) is recovering following his recent open heart surgery, and while the Wizards center assures fans via Real GM, “I am blessed. This entire process could have been much worse”, he’s got a bone to pick with local coverage of his health woes.

The people close to me were horrified when they opened the paper only to read a lot of unfounded, un-researched, speculative articles and statements. I believe the article in the Washington Times read, œThomas could be done. Another one in The Washington Post brought all of these different cases that had nothing to do with mine, and presented them as though they were one and the same. They wrote about the worst possible cases and scenarios they could find. Len Bias, Jason Collier, Hank Gathers (may they all rest in peace).

They just started throwing names and cases around without doing any research. They didn™t say that each case is different and although the heart is the common denominator in each case, comparing would not be intelligent to do until further details are obtained. At the time, the only details they were given were that I missed the beginning of camp to do further testing for heart irregularities. Now they took that small piece of information and turned it into these illustrious articles questioning if I will live, breath, walk, much less play ever again.

So when the people who actually do care about me open the paper, they are frightened by these mountains of poorly written, heartless, inconsiderate, writers whose only concern is to sell papers at any cost. It would be different if we were talking about the The National Enquirer, but we are not. I guess that™s the sad state of present day journalism. They don™t want little nuisances like facts to get in the way of a good story.