WNBA Team Hires Reporter From Athletic for Front Office Role

Another reporter has joined the basketball executive ranks. 

The Portland Fire have hired Ben Pickman, who previously covered the league for The Athletic, to its front office. The Fire are one of two WNBA expansion teams that will begin play this year. 

Pickman will be a salary cap and strategy analyst for Fire GM Vanja Černivec, whom the team hired away from the Golden State Valkyries.

A spokesperson for the Fire declined to comment. The New York Times, the parent company of The Athletic, also declined to comment. Pickman announced in a tweet on Jan. 15 that he was leaving The Athletic but did not comment otherwise on the move.

Pickman spent the past three years at The Athletic as one of its lead WNBA and women’s college basketball writers. Before that, he spent four years at Sports Illustrated. 

He is the latest reporter to join a basketball team’s front office. In October, Monumental Basketball—which operates the Wizards, Mystics, and G League’s Capital City Go-Go—hired former ESPN executive editor Cristina Daglas to be the head of research and identity. 

Daglas’s gig is similar to that of former Sports Illustrated writer Lee Jenkins, who has had the same title for the Clippers since 2018. Michael Winger, now the president of Monumental Basketball, was the assistant GM of the Clippers when the organization hired Jenkins. 

Other journalists have worked in NBA front offices over the years. John Hollinger, Pickman’s former colleague at The Athletic, previously worked as the Grizzlies’ vice president of basketball operations and was hired away from ESPN. 

NBC reporter Grant Liffman had the same title with the Hawks the past three seasons before returning to the sidelines this year. He previously covered the Warriors. And former Grantland writer Kirk Goldsberry worked as a Spurs vice president for strategic research for two years after the website was shut down. He now writes for The Ringer.