Some might say that the big winners on Tuesday night were the San Antonio Spurs, who essentially secured the right to select generational prospect Victor Wembanyama with the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Victor Wembanyama, welcome to San Antonio! pic.twitter.com/hRKKbQfSV3
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 17, 2023
However, you could also argue that the evening’s biggest winner was ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who got paid to hop on a flight to Paris, France where he ended up doing a 70-second interview with Wembanyama at 2:30 a.m. local time before, presumably, hopping right back on a return flight to rack up some sweet frequent flyer miles.
Shoutout to Brian Windhorst for flying all the way to France to do a 70-second interview at 2:30 a.m. pic.twitter.com/IgQ2QGj8rW
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 17, 2023
Was it necessary for ESPN to have Windhorst in Paris to speak with the phenom? Certainly not, as he could have easily just done a satellite interview with Malika Andrews or someone else in the studio.
But credit is due to ESPN who, in the midst of budget-slashing layoffs, had plenty of funds laying around to get one of their reporters all the way out there for a generic interview with poor audio quality that didn’t tell us much of anything.
Naturally, the NBA world had plenty of comments about the interview and what was running through their minds while watching.
expense account and airline miles legend https://t.co/LncJ2CPfAG
— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) May 17, 2023
Brian Windhorst attaching himself to Wembanyama is next level dedication. From lebron to Wembanyama. What a career
— Sean O'Brien (@obie1844) May 17, 2023
ESPN is laying off 7,000 employees to “cut costs” meanwhile they sent Brian Windhorst to France for a 3 minute interview
— Keaton (@Bogosianorris) May 17, 2023
Sending Brian Windhorst to France at 2am for a 60 second spot is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
— Sports Liker (@Ianmurray7) May 17, 2023
They got Brian Windhorst up at 3 in the morning in France for a 5 minute interview with Victor Wembanyama lmao
— coop (@LocalLegendCoop) May 17, 2023
Hopefully, Brian has a safe and productive flight back to Bristol. But more importantly, we hope that his wife was cool with his European trip this time.
Still kinda surprised Brian Windhorst’s wife let him go back to Europe. pic.twitter.com/Wer3sKUjuT
— Mike Beauvais (@MikeBeauvais) May 17, 2023
[ESPN, Awful Announcing on Twitter]