Why I've Joined The Stein Line

Instead of the usual This Week In Basketball compilation on a Monday, we have bequeathed this prime real estate to Jake Fischer to explain in his own words why he is now contributing here weekly

"You're going to be fine."

Over and over they said it. Data points leaving a trail any reporter would try to connect. Good reporters make those dots their chess pieces. Great reporters can read the board. The greatest, I've learned, even broker their own moves.

This monologue is my next. My first promotion, perhaps. The formation of a combination with the legendary Marc Stein that we hope you will follow and enjoy.

The past three years, my career has traced points all over the NBA that I never imagined. Around the globe. Braiding strings of multi-team trades and mapping the musical chairs of free agency. My travel budget ballooned. I spent three weeks in faraway Manila. More miles begat more information and more access. Drinks and dinners? We swiped that green Amex.

Then my record scratched. Not my beat, tempo or choice. On Aug. 30, on the Thursday morning before Labor Day weekend, the call came. The kind of call no one wants to get. A very reputable source informed one humbled reporter how this story, whether I liked it or not, was actually about me.  

No new assignment. No word count instructions. What I mostly heard was this main takeaway: Whatever you do from here, be more creative. Better yet: Be more of a creator.

Then I started making calls. For Intel. And for a better read of the board. 

"You're going to be fine."

"You've been here before," another added. "And you're gonna be here again." 

That last bit of well-wishing charted as a warning, not a comfort. History, in this industry, indeed repeats itself. That phone call wasn't unique. It's a call many in media fear lurks around every corner, whether by Zoom or by phone. No newspaper scribe is immune, nor even one of the greatest NBA analysts to ever host a podcast, famed for expertly explaining how the rock trickles down to the block. It's the same "natural gravity," as one NBA pal recently shared, that befell the Milwaukee Bucks.

My first brush with this unavoidable industry truism came when half a magazine staff was bloodletted back in October 2019. You spend four years waiting in dim hallways of small colleges, dark tunnels of arenas, armed with nothing but curiosity and anticipation for the final whistle of the morning shootaround. You unearth a few good tales. Of a head coach's Starbucks addiction. Of the sport's unlikely halftime hero. How the failures from one kingdom helped shape another. Only to be told over and over it's not your time. Not yet, anyway. And then the time just expires. 

I decreed it so then. To allies. To anyone, really. This guy wasn't applying for another job. He was finishing a book. After all those "sidedoor stories," as one decision-maker who didn't hire this guy referred to my reporting, key subjects and secondary voices became confidants who expanded the Rolodex. I had a documentary short in the rearview. Another, or maybe a feature film, was bound to come. Freelance opportunities were materializing. One outlet even suggested freestyling as some kind of "rumors reporter." Everything would be contracted under a production company dubbed Blue Cat Entertainment, an ode to my late uncle's fledging DJ company he formed during college. I was rejuvenated. Wide-eyed and channeling four years prior. 

During my summer interning with the fabled Sports Illustrated, I brokered 20 minutes with a top draft prospect shrouded in mystery whose return from injury later tonight for the Boston Celtics will be Monday's major NBA news development: Kristaps Porziņģis. Twenty minutes, this rising college senior quickly learned, is an eternity for an interview in the modern NBA. The only problem: I would have to wait until after Porziņģis lunched with a certain national reporter associated with dropping bombs.

After gradually sharpening my blue claws, growing out my hair, learning how to sift through the NBA's whispers, I got another call. Well, actually, it was an email. But they … holy shit. They suddenly wanted to hire this guy for the very post once held by the bomb-dropper. In a span of seven years, I went from waiting uncomfortably for the second dance with a not-yet-drafted KP to writing about Porziņģis for Yahoo! Sports.

There were suggestions, just a few months ago, that it could it happen yet again. That guy announced he was walking away from the NBA chessboard in September and soon a picture with my tongue out could be found all over social media about maybe seizing his very post. 

Everyone abruptly stopped saying I was going to be fine. They were asking if it was real. If it was truly happening. They asked and they asked. Texting, calling, DMing. Friends asked. Friends' cousins at a wedding asked. It wasn't just that picture with my tongue out. An article spitballing five contenders for the leading role in our business featured photos of insiders in sideline suits and broadcast blazers. Several outlets asked for pictures of me "doing the job." It does feel fitting their best option for a printable photo was probably the below shot of me wearing plaid behind Stephen Curry’s iconic pregame warmup at Madison Square Garden. I was the dark horse candidate, they said, bringing dark horse aura to the sidelines. I remember showing up to Adam Silver's All-Star Weekend news conference a few years back in Cleveland and getting a scolding from someone named Stein about "his protégé" showing up for the presser rocking a purple beanie.

Clarity would soon emerge. Maybe the supposed king was off the chessboard, but the destination for me had to be Substack. With Stein. To form the first, as he calls it, NBA Superstack.

This is the best way to continue my NBA reporting and lean more into the creator experience … revealing more of myself while still being myself. "On Substack," someone advised, "your readers feel like they're along for your ride." It's true. Stein himself has taken me to Slovenia and England and other exotic destinations by way of exclusive access and scene-setting directly dispatched to my Inbox.

I had to join him.

I realized here is why (and where) I'm going to be fine. Because I have you. And because I've been so lucky that a Hall of Famer like Stein has had my back all along. My first few months trying to sort reality from rumors, I only knew things were trending in the right direction after Stein knighted my work. My phone would ping as, one after another, luminaries of NBA media followed me back. The Committee (of One) ranked as the utmost gentleman and realest friend from the moment we first met after a Mavericks practice in Dallas during Dirk Nowitzki's final season in 2018-19. He was never too successful or too established to swap war stories with the punk reporter in his twenties. Plenty others were incredibly kind and remain tremendously gracious, great colleagues. Yet with Stein it was always a little bit extra.

Like anyone "who's made it" in some NBA capacity, in this survival game worth billions that happens to center around a sport, there's some spilt blood tracking your footsteps. Some punches I wish I pulled. Some apologies are necessary. These past two seasons, I really have been kicking it like the dark horse. With your favorite player's agent or your favorite team's assistant general manager. I've even worn a few suits, albeit none of them photographed apparently, and I've traded in most of the plaid for a new cardigan era. But I've also likened the G League Showcase and all its team tables that ring the courts every December to the NBA's high school cafeteria. Cool kids know I've got the weed. I've taken the responsibilities of this job quite seriously … while not taking this job or myself too seriously at all. I've scrapped to report truths. In what I consider the right way. "The reason people talk to you, man," an editor once toasted over whisky, "is cause you're a man of the people." 

Once after the second round of the draft in June, I told the people I was about to pack a bowl and go to bed and they cheered. Many of you cheered. The bosses weren't happy when I posted a celebratory joint from Section 109, but you zoomed in to check if it was actually burning. I've connected with quite a few league figures discussing our experiences with psychedelics. I've flown to Maui to smoke with Don Nelson. I interviewed Len Bias' mother. All of that folded into pitching a book about the NBA's history with drugs, so inextricably linked with America's own history on the matter. Maybe the people will want those details unpacked here. I'm open to all ideas. 

That's the thing: I'm working on behalf of you now, the people, to bring even more insider access to the world's greatest basketball league, its players and personnel. Stein has told me so often how rewarding he has found it to cover #thisleague in this manner and we're both so incredibly energized about how much more we can deliver readers by combining resources and relationships instead of competing for Intel. We're going to be stronger individually, and stronger together, under one banner.

Plus Substack's app is terrific and constantly evolving and the platform just passed 4 million total Paid subscribers. I do believe many of you will want to keep learning about the NBA's machinations through my trade deadline notebooks and draft-season reporting … adorned with a stronger dose of who I am and what I do and that I can be out on Frenchman Street while doing it. I'm going to attempt peeling back the curtain far beyond that first morsel of breaking news. You're gonna read more about me. You're gonna see more about me. How I've connected with people across music festivals and arena floors. But only in ways that feel natural and interesting and still bring you original NBA information and storytelling you won't find anywhere else.

Much of my written NBA reporting will live on The Stein Line … now featuring The People's Insider. The scoops you know and love, you'll be getting at least two articles a week here, stemming from pregame locker room conversations and phone calls from my bedroom. This may prove so fun and different that "at least two" ends up being an understatement. It always tends to work out that way in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, draft and free agency. In turn, I sincerely welcome any feedback along the way.

Stein used to challenge my initial resistance to the term "insider." That word carries some element of performance and self-importance; Senior NBA Reporter struck me as the more aspirational title. When The People's Insider moniker began showing up in my mentions and on Reddit threads, I initially resisted that, too. Then I came to see it as a gift. Something to wear proudly. At various points on this journey, many voices told me they backed that oft-cited notion that I would "be fine" because I was authentic. They saw that I can laugh at myself and hopefully you'll laugh with me. And if I do flub the No. 15 pick while racing on Twitter, I admit the mistake. I got flamed. Some of you laughed at me. That's what happens when you compete on a public scoreboard. Good thing I know what to do with a spark.

Rest assured that there will be plenty more storytelling to come. The behind-the-scenes on deals that did and didn't happen, while ideally pushing more NBA figures to speak on the record for more nuanced pieces. I look at the NBA marketplace in a similar manner to the way financial analysts evaluate Wall Street. So you're going to read up on leaguewide trends and topics as often as you're going to read about the perimeter defenders that the Bucks are searching for, according to league sources, by making their 2031 first-round pick available.

I'm planning to contribute a few magazine-style features elsewhere — but always with the intent of bringing back fresh information for our subscribers. There's been some really exciting conversations over the past few months. I've been finishing a manuscript that should result in my first novel. There's a separate podcast in the works, too. Maybe more. Maybe a YouTube show. Who knows? Bleacher Report has been and will continue to be a fantastic home to conduct video hits and livestream on-camera reporting that's quite complementary to any writing for The Stein Line, just as we complemented my original B/R written notebooks with live-audio shows back in the Callin and Halftime days many of you remember. It truly warms the heart when I hear you asking for a return to those days and Stein and I will definitely do our best to replicate some of that live-audio magic when we co-host Substack Chat sessions aimed at doing that just in written form. The rest, as we build it together — him and I, you and I — is yet to come.

I don't want to put any limits on what this endeavor can be. That's why, if you're reading this, it's too early. But it would truly mean the world if you subscribe.

I pledge accountability in these streets. 

We're coming to The Stein Line, we ain't droppingdimes,

Not working it out on the remix, 

'cause this was always the dream, the original version.

Here's a graphic we've borrowed from a past Jake Fischer insider appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show.