Every N.B.A. team is looking for the slightest edge, the smallest piece of data or advantage that will help it win or sign the right players. The Los Angeles Clippers believe they found that something special in an unexpected place: the pages of Sports Illustrated.
The magazine announced Monday night that one of its stars, Lee Jenkins, who covers the N.B.A. and has written some of the magazine’s most popular profiles, was leaving after a decade, to join the Clippers in a newly created post called executive director of research and identity.
“I was offered an extraordinary opportunity to work in the front office of an N.