Put this in the "new media doing cool with stuff old media access" bin. Two SBN bloggers -- the guys from the Lakers' Silver Screen and Roll blog and the Magic's Third Quarter Collapse blog -- are writing about The Finals for NBA.com.

I'm not a big basketball guy, but I found their perspective pretty interesting here. They're outsiders given insider privileges for this huge event and are bridging the gap between us as fans and the insider lifestyle. We're getting a glimpse into entire Finals' world and not just coverage of the games and press conference quotes. The access is as much the story as is the game of basketball.

On a tangential note, this leaves baseball as the least blogger-friendly sport out there. SBN bloggers were present at the NFL draft in April and many will likely be credentialed to cover games this upcoming season. NHL.com works closely with a lot of bloggers and is probably the most blogger-friendly sport. Baseball? Not so much. Some teams have given access to bloggers and credentialed them for the press boxes. But league-wide? Nuh-uh. It's one of those things that is a mark against Bud Selig, but isn't considered a big deal because the mainstream media won't make a fuss over it and it's not something that's an active mistake. It's more passive and can't be measured directly, just indirectly as lost opportunity.