Sports Illustrated is losing Lee Jenkins to an unlikely competitor. The writer will take on a role in the Los Angeles Clippers front office. Jenkins will serve under the newly-created title of Executive Director of Research and Identity.
Lee Jenkins first joined Sports Illustrated in 2007. He has served as the publication’s lead NBA writer since 2010. He had nothing but kind things to say about SI in a press release announcing his departure.
SI remains the ultimate platform for sportswriting and I would not leave for another media outlet. But I was offered an extraordinary opportunity to work in the front office of an NBA team and see the league I cover from a different angle. I’ve been privileged to tell a lot of triumphant basketball stories over the past decade. With Steve Ballmer and Jerry West, Lawrence Frank and Michael Winger, Doc Rivers and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, I’m going to try to help build one.
This isn’t the first time Sports Illustrated has lost one of its writers to an opportunity in the NBA. Luke Winn left the magazine a year ago to join the Toronto Raptors front office as that team’s Director of Prospect Strategy.
