The relationship between reporters and athletes tends to not be the greatest all the time for various reasons. The former have jobs to do and that is to critique the players without crossing any boundaries. However, even when the insiders and writers do their work correctly, the athletes still may lash out anyway because they don't always like how honest they are. For LeBron James, he seems to stay away from creating any sort of personal rapport with those in sports media. He made that pretty evident during his recent interview with former NFL punter Pat McAfee. The Los Angeles Lakers superstar made an appearance on the ESPN employee's self-titled program, and he unleashed some unabashed statements, to say the least.
One of which was directed towards one of McAfee's coworkers, Brian Windhorst. In case you didn't know, Windy (Windhorst's nickname) has covered LeBron James since his high school days at St. Vincent-St. Mary's in Akron, Ohio. They actually went to the same school, although Brian graduated some time before James. Since then, wherever he's gone, Windhorst has followed. He became a beat writer for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003, the year James was drafted. Then, when he left to go to the Miami Heat in 2010, Brian joined ESPN and covered the team.
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He still covers LeBron closely, but definitely not as close as he used to. Because of their connection to one another, fans have gotten the impression that they vibe and have somewhat of friendship. But according to The King, that couldn't be further from the truth. "I seen Brian Windhorst on one of these shows not too long ago. This guy was saying he's like my f*cking best friend. These guys are just weird," he said bluntly. However, in Windy's defense, he knows that they don't vibe like that.
Per Sports Illustrated, the 47-year-old reporter said that they "had messaged [in the past] but we both kind of moved on." He also added that, "LeBron doesn’t have personal relationships like that with reporters. He hasn’t for a long time." Pat McAfee's show is a looser platform than most of the programs on ESPN, so he must've felt comfortable in airing out his true feelings. He did that with Stephen A. Smith during his interview as well about the viral altercation over his coverage of his son, Bronny. "He's like on a Taylor Swift tour run right now. It started off with, 'I didn't want to address it. I wasn't going to address it, but since the video came out, I feel the need to address it.' Motherf*cker, are you kidding me? If there's one person who couldn't wait for the video to drop so you could address it, it's your a*s," he said in part.
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