According to two sources, the big news in the NBA last night wasn’t Kobe vs. Shaq, but instead it was the fact that venerable Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum had accepted a buyout from the magazine. We emailed McCallum at 9 am but haven’t heard back.

McCallum told us via email Friday: “Yes, I took a buyout. Totally my choice, and I feel absolutely positive about it. They want me to be a Special Contributor, so I’ll still be doing some stuff, at least through next year and probably longer.”

McCallum has anchored the paper’s NBA coverage for about the last seven years, and he’s been at the magazine since 1981. He also wrote this book about the fun-and-gun Phoenix Suns, which is a must-read for any hoops fan.

This is, by our count, the third major NBA writer within the year to accept a buyout. Peter May left the Boston Globe earlier this year, and ditto for Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune. We’ve recently seen May’s byline pop up over at Yahoo. We don’t expect McCallum to be on the sidelines long.

Attempting to read between the lines, it seems as if media outlets are throwing in the towel on the NBA. (USA Today basically abandoned the sport mid-season last year before moving Jon Sarceno over to the beat.) If you’re cutting costs, and you know that the NFL is the most popular sport, and readers seem more passionate about baseball than the NBA, then the move is simple. It’s not like David Stern cares - his focus is primarily on marketing the game in the Far East, where he’s got an audience of one billion to work with, and there’s no NFL to compete against.

[Update: McCallum told True Hoop, "Pro hoops takes a lot of bashing in the public eye, but, to the journalists who cover it, it's a sport with great people playing it, coaching it, front-officing it, p.r.-ing it, writing it and blogging it. I'll still be doing some stuff as a Special Contributor, so feel free, as always, to question my opinions and word choice."]