Saturday marked the second time in just over five weeks Hughes chose to go public with his frustration. It should be made clear Hughes merely answered questions both times, and his belief he should be a high-minute man was delivered in a tone more matter-of-fact than malicious.

In fact, newspaper space being at the premium it is, two lines from Hughes’ answers got trimmed: “I understand other guys need more shots. I’ve done that role.” In other words, fire away, Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose. Hughes just wants more playing time.

From today’s trib.

I don’t think it’s common practice to come back a day after you write a fairly damning column about a player, and write another column trying to let him off the hook a little. Seems like maybe Hughes wasn’t being as disruptive as we thought.

It’s too bad he has to write them down. These are unwritten mores of just about any activity from humans.

I realized how solid his reporting was this summer when his pre-draft coverage was so much better than anything in the major chicago papers.

As for KC, he was on Chicago Tribune Live last week, before he quoted Larry for a second time, and Sam Smith brought up the first time KC quoted Larry about his lack of playing time; KC got all excited and geeked out on how he LOVES getting controversial quotes from athletes and even said something to the effect of he hopes it happens again so he has something to write about. At that moment, I thought it was a bit unprofessional, if not amusing. Sam looked at him like he was crazy.