Good morning, and what can I tell you?
First of all, my name is Law Murray. And I am a writer at The Athletic, covering the Clippers and the NBA.
How did we get here?
Well, it’s been a long and strange trip — not like Bill Walton’s at ALL — so I should take you through it so that you see a little bit of who I am and what I will see while covering the Clippers.
Advertisement
Philadelphia is my hometown and my birthplace. I gave no indication in my early years that I would be interested in journalism — or basketball. That changed once I got to play NBA JAM (Tournament Edition!) in the recreation center after school in second grade. That would be the edition with the Dominique Wilkins/Ron Harper Clippers team.
I was into video games, and I was into numbers. NBA JAM gave me a chance to not only understand basketball visually (for the eye test crowd!) but to also introduce me to how data (for the analytics crowd!) can describe what each player and team can do. Sure, I wanted to be a basketball player growing up. But I also wanted to be a statistician. If you were in my class, I absolutely wrote your name down on my teams and found a reason to put you in the game — that’s what kind of kid I was. Inclusivity was a priority of mine then, and it is now.
When I was at Friends’ Central, I got more comfortable on the court, but I also discovered I was interested in performing. “Saturday Night Live” became my favorite show. When I got back from a homestay program in Spain the summer after my sophomore year in high school, I started writing a monthly newsletter called the “MADDSKILLZ Update” (because I had skills). This was back when people still read emails for fun!
I wanted an outlet that linked all of my people together while letting me mix in sports analysis and observational comedy. I did these updates for seven seasons — through high school and college and into my first year out of school at California University of Pennsylvania (yes, two state names).
In 2009, I was a corps member in a nonprofit youth service organization called City Year. I was a part of a group of youth who were on teams to curb the dropout rate and help lead and powerfully serve the communities we were in. I did a year in my hometown of Philadelphia; the next year, I stayed in City Year but relocated to serve in Los Angeles for the 2010-2011 season. Before that, I had never been west of Ohio. I came to the West Coast to maximize what I could do with my career.
Advertisement
I’ve been a part of L.A. ever since. And after my years in City Year, I knew I wanted to be in sports media. I ended the “MADDSKILLZ Update” newsletter and started a site called The Networks United (#TheNU) so that I could discuss my life and observations in a variety of ways. I previewed NBA seasons using “The Lightweight Report” and previewed the playoffs with “The Bandwagon Report.” I had equal opportunity shade. That fit perfectly in the City of Angels, where there is plenty of entertainment from two NBA teams in the market.
Getting into USC for a master’s in journalism meant I was locked into sports media, and the opportunities I had while there were tremendously influential toward making me the writer I am now. Covering the Winter Olympics in Sochi gave me a chance to adapt to sports that I never watched before and be a strong reporter and storyteller. I started covering the Drew League, the best summer pro-am in the world. And I started a three-year run with ClipperBlog, an opportunity that allowed me to cover the NBA at a higher level.
ClipperBlog allowed me to work with a revolving door of talented writers across the TrueHoop Network, and I balanced covering a beat while gaining a vast level of experience outside of writing. For a couple of months, Marketplace helped me with audio production, and Fox Sports let me in on how television gets put together. I got to be a statistician at NFL Media (which I now call being a researcher), and that allowed me to refine my ability to contextualize history, numbers and information for a variety of platforms.
Joining ESPN meant the end of my regular coverage for ClipperBlog. My time at ESPN allowed me to be an editor and cover the NBA full time. I worked with an incredible team of writers and editors for four years. I believed I could do some of the best work of my career at ESPN as an editor, and I wanted to elevate the work of every writer I worked with every night.
When I came to ESPN, I believed there was a way to cover all the teams in the NBA and as many games as possible. Covering the Clippers for The Athletic gives me an opportunity to share a variety of perspectives with supreme depth and consistency. It’s basketball, but it’s also community. I value transparency, the ability to reach various commitment levels of basketball fandom and inclusivity.
Advertisement
I’m going to have fun doing this. We’ve come to the end of our first story together, and I hope it’s the beginning of a long relationship. If I can drive home one thing here, it’s this:
I care. Like 2Pac in “Keep Ya Head Up.”
Also, I can make an above-the-break 3, and the people should have a writer who can get a stop-and-finish in transition. Thanks for reading!
Not subscribed yet? Try The Athletic free for a week: http://theathletic.com/freetrial
(Photo of Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka: Harry How / Getty Images)
