Sports Illustrated writer Lee Jenkins is leaving the media to take a job with the Los Angeles Clippers’ front office.
Jenkins will be the team’s Executive Director of Research and Identity, which sounds like a position created specifically for him.
Jenkins, 40, had been with SI since 2007. He has served as the outlet’s lead NBA writer for the last eight years and was widely recognized as one of the best storytellers/features writers in sports journalism.
“SI remains the ultimate platform for sportswriting and I would not leave for another media outlet,” Jenkins said in a statement issued through SI. “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.”
Jenkins leaving SI for the Clippers is a major loss to the outlet and fans of high-quality sports writing. Some of our favorite blog posts over the years are owed to nuggets found in his stories, such as this, this and this.
We selfishly will miss being able to read Jenkins’ excellent work.
