Clippers Hire Sports Illustrated Writer Lee Jenkins for Front Office Role

[Clemenza]

He talked a mile a minute during the segment they had for him in-between the action during last nights game. A true chatterbox. Even Ralph Lawler had the look like, "gesh, who unleashed this guy?".. It seems like they hired (what we would call in the rap world) a Hype-Man. Lee Jenkins is here to get on the mic or keyboard and say nothing but good things about the team and organization. Nothing wrong with that and I get what he's doing but its kinda odd at the same time.

[esqtvd]

He talked a mile a minute during the segment they had for him in-between the action during last nights game. A true chatterbox. Even Ralph Lawler had the look like, "gesh, who unleashed this guy?".. It seems like they hired (what we would call in the rap world) a Hype-Man. Lee Jenkins is here to get on the mic or keyboard and say nothing but good things about the team and organization. Nothing wrong with that and I get what he's doing but its kinda odd at the same time.

I make it he's getting a million Ballmer Bucks a year, double or more than you can make as a sportswriter. And yes, he's gonna be a shill for the Clippers.

But I think it's more than that. I do think Jenkins intends to earn his money and help make the LA Clippers THE most desirable FA destination possible--both for the supermax types but also the mid-to-minimum level types, who ironically all choose where they go based not on money but on Quality of NBA Life.

[For instance, I'm a little surprised we got Luc.] Jenkins didn't have anything to do with that, but he's gonna Ballmer's eyes and ears about what people [players] are thinking out there.

[QRich3]

If you've followed his writing over the years, the guy is known for getting players to open up like other journos can't, he kind of "gets" people and explains so well what they are about. He's a bit corny for my liking, but the guy knows how to judge people and get a good idea of what they're about, and he knows how to explain it in a way everyone understands it.

It's easy to see how those skills can be transferred when it comes to projecting how free agents or draft picks will behave if you invest a lot of money in them. It's not that he's a good seller or a good writer, it's that he's good at one aspect of people evaluation that's a bit underrated in the NBA.

[esqtvd]

If you've followed his writing over the years, the guy is known for getting players to open up like other journos can't, he kind of "gets" people and explains so well what they are about. He's a bit corny for my liking, but the guy knows how to judge people and get a good idea of what they're about, and he knows how to explain it in a way everyone understands it.

It's easy to see how those skills can be transferred when it comes to projecting how free agents or draft picks will behave if you invest a lot of money in them. It's not that he's a good seller or a good writer, it's that he's good at one aspect of people evaluation that's a bit underrated in the NBA.

Glad you somewhat or mostly agree.

I do think that Lee Jenkins will also use his influence inside the org, reporting straight to Ballmer. if Jasen Powell is poison, he'll be out. If nobody wants to play for Doc, Doc will be hitting the bricks too.

It's all about attracting talent. The NFL is a coaches' league. The players OWN the NBA, and if you don't have 2 or 3 of the Top 25, you're screwed.

[Ranma]

Ben Golliver & Rob Mahoney, Sports Illustrated (10/16/18)

32. Lee Jenkins as the story, rather than the storyteller. The Crossover dearly misses Lee Jenkins, former Sports Illustrated senior writer turned Clippers’ Executive Director of Research and Identity. His unorthodox move and quirky job title are cause for curiosity, both for observers and, apparently, those in L.A.’s front office. For fans of Jenkins’s riveting superstar profiles, it will be fun to track whether his fingerprints appear on the Clippers’ moves and their communications strategy. How much can a sportswriter influence a big-market, $2 billion franchise?

73 Reasons to Watch the 2018-19 NBA Season

[TrueLAfan]

I think Jennings hiring is great because it’s an example of playing the “long game.” How many athletes perform well, often (but not always) sign a big deal, and—kinda stop being good? There’s something that hadn’t been spotted or seen before that came up after they had reached a certain level of success. I don’t know what it is; they stop caring as much. Maybe they never cared at all (*cough* Olowokandi! *cough*). I think Jenkins will help steer us away from that. That, combined with Jerry West’s ability to spot and establish proper motivations could help us build great teams. It’s not a one year thing, and it’s not like Jenkins will be operating on an island, but I think it could reap really big dividends.

[esqtvd]

I think Jennings hiring is great because it’s an example of playing the “long game.” How many athletes perform well, often (but not always) sign a big deal, and—kinda stop being good? There’s something that hadn’t been spotted or seen before that came up after they had reached a certain level of success. I don’t know what it is; they stop caring as much. Maybe they never cared at all (*cough* Olowokandi! *cough*). I think Jenkins will help steer us away from that. That, combined with Jerry West’s ability to spot and establish proper motivations could help us build great teams. It’s not a one year thing, and it’s not like Jenkins will be operating on an island, but I think it could reap really big dividends.

Yah, that's where I was going with this.

Two years ago Michael Lewis gave an interview to Business Insider in which he suggested that professional sports teams should revolutionize the role of scouts. The job of the modern scout, he said, was to do more than figure out how fast a pitcher throws or how high a linebacker jumps; their job was part psychologist and part detective. They should find out how a player gets along with teammates, for example, and how they handle being away from home.

“What you should do is basically hire a bunch of young journalists to go figure out who these people are,” Lewis said.

Lawrence Frank, the president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Clippers, read the interview. He took Lewis’s advice.

There you have it. Front offices get isolated from the facts on the ground, look at the numbers, and end up signing head cases and sociopaths. In the least, Jenkins' worth is gonna be in avoiding these albatrosses.

There have been a LOT of bad signings in the NBA, probably more than good signings, and if Jenkins gets a million Ballmer Bucks a year just to warn us off $20 or $30M of salary cap disaster, that's peanuts.

[Ranma]

Read on Twitter

Ben McGrath, New Yorker (9/22/118)

I raised this notion with Bill James, who is often thought of as the intellectual godfather of the “Moneyball” movement, and who still works as a senior adviser to the Red Sox, having long since surrendered some of his independence as a critic in pursuit of the purer glory of wins over losses. He wrote back, “The money that you pay to players is so big, hundreds of millions a year in the case of the Red Sox, that anything you do to reduce the chance of a mistake can reasonably pay for itself. If Jenkins could interview the player/candidates, get a sense of their motivations and focus, it doesn’t seem improbable that his sense of where their career is going might be valuable to the organization.” He also mentioned that Michael Lewis, the author of “Moneyball,” once proposed to him that, given their dependence on the habits and personalities of nineteen- and twenty-year-old males, the asset that professional teams could most stand to benefit from is “a bunch of college girls” with the skills of reporters: “people who would find out everything there is to find out about an athlete,” as James put it.

It’s also not very expensive, given the disparity between journalists’ wages and athletes’ millions. Jenkins, for his part, downplayed the applicability of Lewis’s theory, perhaps realizing that being implicated as a spy or a therapist would diminish his effectiveness in the role. “It’s not sports psychology,” he said, of his new gig, adding that talking to players who are already under contract with other teams is considered “tampering,” and punishable by fines or worse. Neither, he said, does the job involve “P.R.” He won’t be writing copy for the team’s Web site. The only kind of externally directed writing he could imagine possibly engaging in was helping to craft letters to players’ representatives, or agents, not so much as a primary element of the job but in the collaborative sense of “looking for ways that I can add value.”

Why Did an N.B.A. Team Offer a Vague, New Job to a Popular Writer of Profiles? And Why Did He Take It?

[mkwest]

Watch on YouTube

From 2:54 on, Frank speaks on Jenkins' influence within the organization.

[Quake Griffin]

Late in on this, but adding Jenkins is a pretty big piece. I made a joke about LeBron demanding a trade to the Clippers in 3...2..1. But in all seriousness, ive been saying for two years the plan was Kawhi.This is one of the final pieces put in place to help accomplish that goal.

BUMP!

Read on Twitter

Would love to hear one day what his input was on getting this deal done.


The-He-Drives-A-97-Tahoe-Article he wrote a couple years back.
https://www.si.com/nba/2016/03/15/kawhi-leonard-spurs-tim-duncan-gregg-popovich-tony-parker-manu-ginobili

[Ranma]

Jovan Buha & Sam Amick (with Shams Charania contributing), TheAthletic.com (7/23/19)

‘We Have a Deal Ready. Are You In?’ Inside the Clippers’ Pursuit of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George

[TheNewEra]

Watch on YouTube

From 2:54 on, Frank speaks on Jenkins' influence within the organization.

Ryan West could be on the way

[Ranma]

Andrew Greif, Los Angeles Times (8/4/19)

“Lawrence Frank did more research than any human being is possible to do,” Rivers said. “And I thought [former Orlando general manager] John Gabriel did the same thing. That’s why we were successful in Orlando getting Tracy and Grant, and that’s why we‘ve been successful today.”

With Leonard, the Clippers’ research indicated he sought a substantive, basketball-focused conversation.

“All the other stuff that people think matters in the recruitment, I don’t think Kawhi wanted to talk about that, and so I didn’t,” Rivers said. “I talked about winning, and basketball.

“Kawhi is a serious man and I think you felt that with him. I think he felt the seriousness of me and how serious I am about winning and how serious he is about winning and he felt good about that match.”

Doc Rivers’ Magic Lessons Taught Him How to Deal with Superstar Players