Brian Windhorst has been covering LeBron James for over two decades now, but there still isn’t much fondness there from James’ end.
The Los Angeles Lakers star James appeared Wednesday on “The Pat McAfee Show” for a wide-ranging interview. During the interview, James touched on some of the outlandish reports he often sees about himself in the media.
“I see a lot of s–t too,” said James. “Like I seen Brian Windhorst on one of his shows not too long ago … This guy who says he’s like my f–king best friend. These guys are just weird.”
You can watch the full clip of James’ remarks below (but obviously beware of the foul language).
The ESPN personality Windhorst is largely known for his extensive history of covering James. Windhorst first started covering James way back in 2002 when the latter was still at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Ohio (where Windhorst had also previously attended high school). Soon after that, Windhorst became the Cleveland Cavaliers beat writer for the Akron Beacon Journal in 2003 (coinciding with the Cavaliers drafting James) and eventually worked for another Cleveland-based publication, The Plain Dealer.
Windhorst would ultimately leave The Plain Dealer to cover the Miami Heat in 2010 (when James joined the Heat as a free agent). But when James returned to the Cavaliers in 2014, Windhorst returned to the Cleveland beat as well, joining 850 ESPN Cleveland as their Cavaliers analyst and beat writer.
These days, Windhorst focuses more on general NBA coverage, appearing on ESPN television shows like “NBA Today” and “SportsCenter” as well as hosting ESPN’s “The Hoop Collective” podcast. But in the eyes of many, Windhorst is still inextricably linked to James.
That said, Windhorst made the surprising revelation a few years ago that he no longer had much of a relationship with James, especially after James’ move to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018. Now we are hearing from James himself that he does not think especially highly of the longtime journalist covering him in Windhorst.
