Wizards Interview Clippers’ Winger For Top Front Office Job

The Wizards, who are seeking a new head of basketball operations, conducted an interview with Clippers general manager Michael Winger for the position, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Winger is at least the second candidate to meet with Wizards management and owner Ted Leonsis about the team’s top front office job, Wojnarowski writes. Pelicans general manager Trajan Langdon also interviewed with Washington.

Bucks assistant GM Milt Newton reportedly spoke to the Wizards too, though that was when the team was still said to be in the “information-gathering” stage of its search, so that conversation was presumably less formal.

Winger, who has worked under president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank in Los Angeles since 2017, has been an NBA executive for nearly two decades. He served as the Cavaliers’ director of basketball operations from 2005-10 and then was an assistant general manager with the Thunder under Sam Presti from 2010-17.

Although Winger has drawn interest from rival teams since joining the Clippers, he has consistently turned down those overtures. The Timberwolves, for instance, sought an interview with him when they were seeking a new head of basketball operations in 2019, but he opted to pass on that opportunity and remain in L.A.