Longtime Golden State Warriors beat writer Anthony Slater is headed to ESPN.
Front Office Sports reported the news Friday that Slater will leave The Athletic and join the Worldwide Leader’s NBA team later this summer. Slater was an early hire for the Bay Area wing of The Athletic, where he chronicled the Warriors dynasty extensively. Slater also hosted the Warriors Plus Minus and Warriors All-82 podcasts for Audacy.
Before joining The Athletic, Slater covered the Oklahoma City Thunder for The Oklahoman during the early days of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook’s careers. The Athletic often assigned him to NBA playoffs and Finals series outside Golden State in recent years.
Slater joins a new-look NBA reporting team at ESPN. The outlet has lost Zach Lowe, Adrian Wojnarowski and Kevin Arnovitz in recent years while moving to a more regionalized approach to covering even the biggest teams. Staffers like Tim MacMahon, Tim Bontemps and Kendra Andrews cover portions of the country rather than one team beat.
Back at The Athletic, Slater leaves a suddenly carved-out Bay Area newsroom behind. Former editor and columnist Tim Kawakami left last year alongside 49ers beat reporter David Lombardi. Previously, feature writer Ethan Sherwood Strauss departed to launch an independent newsletter and podcast.
While The Athletic has chosen to left certain beats open in recent years, it still employs team-specific reporters for most top major-market teams. With four championships in the past decade and a hungry fanbase, the Warriors will likely remain a priority for the New York Times-owned sports outlet.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.