{"id":95063,"date":"2025-06-13T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/95063\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:48:09","slug":"thunder-once-thought-about-hiring-espns-brian-windhorst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/95063\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder once thought about hiring ESPN’s Brian Windhorst"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Windhorst has built his<\/a> career by reporting on the inner-workings of NBA front offices, and it turns out he almost joined one himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Thursday\u2019s episode of \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out,\u201d<\/a> Torre reported that Thunder general manager Sam Presti once explored hiring Windhorst away from ESPN to be an \u201cinformation guy\u201d for Oklahoma City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA little over a decade ago, [Presti] actually explored hiring our extremely plugged-in buddy Brian Windhorst away from ESPN to work as an information guy for the Thunder,\u201d Torre said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Torre noted that the reason the longtime general manager pursued<\/a> Windhorst was because \u201cinformation, to Sam Presti, is currency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an edge,\u201d Torre added. \u201cA competitive advantage, and you don\u2019t surrender that information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Windhorst stayed put at ESPN, but he wouldn\u2019t have been the first NBA reporter or media personality to take a role within an organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Hollinger joined the Grizzlies\u2019 front office after working at ESPN, and then moved back into the media realm as a writer for The Athletic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Longtime Sports Illustrated profile writer Lee Jenkins took a job as the Clippers\u2019 Executive Director of Research and Identity, and now works with the team as Vice President of Basketball Affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Brian Windhorst before Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Others have been unsuccessful in making similar jumps with Bill Simmons campaigning to be GM of the Timberwolves in 2009<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Windhorst, though, has remained firmly on the media side of things, and is now ironically reporting on the Thunder in the 2025 NBA Finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pablo Torre during Thursday\u2019s episode of \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out.\u201d @pablofindsout\/X<\/p>\n

The Akron, Ohio native kickstarted his career by covering LeBron James in high school, with the two both attending St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, though Windhorst graduated seven years before James.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He moved on to become the Cavs beat writer at the Akron Beacon Journal and Cleveland Plain Dealer before joining ESPN in 2010, after LeBron took<\/a> his talents to South Beach and joined the Heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thunder GM Sam Presti during the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

And the Windhorst tidbit wasn\u2019t the only news Torre revealed about Presti on his show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It turns out Presti made a jazz-rap album called \u201cMilk Money,\u201d which had been wiped off the internet, before becoming an uber-successful basketball executive.<\/p>\n

A man of many talents, clearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Windhorst has built his career by reporting on the inner-workings of NBA front offices, and it turns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,130,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,3136,66,2086,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-95063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-oklahoma","12":"tag-oklahoma-city","13":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","14":"tag-oklahomacity","15":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","16":"tag-sam-presti","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-entertainment","19":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114673779002885767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}