Chris Herring, a longtime NBA reporter who began his career as the New York Knicks beat reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is joining ESPN as a senior writer.
Herring most recently wrote about the NBA for Sports Illustrated, penning features and a weekly newsletter. Herring had not published an article at SI since early November.
He announced the move to ESPN on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “Got to write so many fun, deep-dive stories here before, and am hyped to have the opportunity to do it again.”
Have some professional news to share: I'm officially back at @ESPN as a senior writer to cover the NBA. Got to write so many fun, deep-dive stories here before, and am hyped to have the opportunity to do it again.
— Chris Herring (@Herring_NBA) December 6, 2023
Herring previously wrote about the NBA for the then-Disney-owned FiveThirtyEight, with occasional crossovers into the ESPN universe. His stories often explored and celebrated the minutiae of the NBA. Highlights included an examination of how efficient sharpshooter Marco Bellinelli was while shoeless and measuring how often backboard mics caught Carmelo Anthony cursing.
Herring is also the author of “Blood in the Garden,” a book retelling the 1990s New York Knicks’ almost-dynasty.
While at SI, Herring also hosted the Open Floor podcast. He is a recurring guest on The Lowe Post at ESPN already, so more audio appearances are likely. Based in New York, Herring will have an opportunity for First Take and Get Up appearances as well.
Herring was part of SI’s hiring spree in the 2019-20 range. He joined the magazine alongside Howard Beck, Pat Forde and others under Arena Group ownership. Arena Group is reportedly exploring a sale of SI and has axed numerous staffers this year, including Beck.
SI was heavily criticized last month for its use of artificial intelligence-generated author profiles and e-commerce articles.
With Beck and Herring gone, Rohan Nadkarni and Chris Mannix are the only NBA staff writers left at SI.
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.