Jake Fischer was at a friend’s birthday party when a push notification lit up his phone just after midnight on February 2. His first thought: “That can’t be real.”

The incoming tweet from ESPN’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania revealed that the Dallas Mavericks had unexpectedly traded their young superstar Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Dončić trade shocked the basketball world. Why would the Mavericks give away their best player, an ascendant 25-year-old who led them to the NBA Finals last season?

BREAKING: The Dallas Mavericks are trading Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick, sources tell ESPN. Three-team deal that includes Utah.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 2, 2025

Within minutes, a front office employee involved in the trade texted Fischer about it. Then someone from the Mavericks sent a message confirming the deal was, in fact, real. (As word spread, videos surfaced online showing the stunned reactions of fellow NBA players in the middle of their own games.) Soon, people were reaching out to Fischer, who also reports on the inner workings of the NBA, to verify the news.

It was an especially big moment for sports journalism, which now devotes as much attention to the high drama of player transactions as it does to the actual competition. Once the story broke, Fischer stayed up until 4 a.m. calling around to investigate what happened and gather intel about other possible deals that could occur before the NBA’s February 6 trade deadline.

“The way I cover this stuff, I’m always looking for a throughline and a trend that is connecting everything,” he said. “The Luka trade was the easiest way in. You could call anyone in the league and talk about that.”

He spoke to contacts across the country, got a few hours of sleep, then picked up his phone as soon as he woke up to do it all again. When he wasn’t talking, he was writing. In the three days leading up to the trade deadline, he published four bylines about the latest NBA news.

The NBA insider is a relatively new role in sports media. In the heyday of print journalism, player transactions were often buried in small font without a byline on the last page of the sports section. Today, however, an insider’s job consists of communicating with sources — such as front office executives and agents — and trying to break news before anyone else.

One of the biggest challenges is scrutinizing where the details come from. In the NBA, an exchange of favors, rumors, and leaks goes on between league sources and reporters behind the scenes. Agents want to know how the latest whispers might affect the players and coaches they represent. Front office employees want to probe what other teams are thinking, or maybe mislead the competition if it can give them an edge. It’s the insider’s responsibility to confirm what’s real and convey that to the public.

The role gained prominence back around 2010 thanks to Adrian Wojnarowski, an NBA writer for Yahoo Sports, who developed a following by posting his intel as quickly as possible on Twitter from his phone, which cut down on the time needed to edit and publish a traditional news article. His scoops got so popular fans gave them a nickname: Woj bombs. And he became such a household name that people bid up to $5,000 during an auction to buy his old iPhones.

“There was a perfect storm of interest in the NBA, and then I think 2010 changed interest in free agency,” Wojnarowski said on a podcast last year. “That became its own thing, the trades, the deals, the buildup to the deals.”

Over time, breaking news also became big business. As a result, insiders turned into valuable media stars. With sports gambling now legal in 38 states, the public craves immediate updates since any news about a player could shift betting odds. In 2015, Wojnarowski emerged as a coveted free agent in his own right, and left Yahoo for ESPN in a bidding war. By the time he retired from sports journalism in 2024, he was in the middle of a three-year, $20 million contract from ESPN, meaning he made more money than many of the players he covered. ESPN hired Shams Charania to fill Wojnarowski’s insider role, reportedly for $3 million per year.

While insiders typically work for established media companies like ESPN, where they benefit from substantial resources and access to big audiences, Jake Fischer’s position stands out. He operates out of his Brooklyn apartment and publishes scoops behind a paywall on Substack. It’s not even his own Substack. He contributes to The Stein Line, which was launched in 2021 by veteran reporter Marc Stein, who has covered the NBA for over 30 years at outlets including ESPN and The New York Times.

The Stein Line currently ranks as the fifth most-popular sports newsletter on Substack, with over 40,000 subscribers. (Stein wouldn’t disclose how many are paid subscribers, but Substack’s leaderboard reveals it’s in the thousands.)

Unlike Wojnarowski, who worked as a beat reporter at local newspapers before becoming an award-winning columnist, and Charania, who started trying to be an insider while still in high school, Fischer began his career hoping to write longform magazine features. “I never wanted to be an insider,” he said.

Fischer scored an internship at Sports Illustrated in 2015 and stacked his portfolio with human interest articles. He got coffee with an NBA coach obsessed with Starbucks. He chronicled the rigorous routines that two over-40 players went through to stay on the court near the end of their careers. “I made all these relationships around the NBA by writing these non-threatening stories,” he said.

During that stretch at Sports Illustrated, Fischer also became friends with Stein. “He kept reporting stuff that made me say, ‘Damn…I wish I had that.’ It was impossible not to take notice of his work,” Stein told me over email. “Gradually, I became a sounding board for him, to the extent that was possible when we were in direct competition.”

In 2019, Fischer was part of mass layoffs at Sports Illustrated. He spent a chunk of time putting together a book, Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever, which doubled as an audition to become an insider because it required interviewing hundreds of executives, players, scouts, and coaches. Next came a stop at Bleacher Report, which Fischer parlayed into the senior NBA reporter role at Yahoo Sports, the same place Wojnarowski built his reputation. However, in 2024, new management took over the site and declined to pick up Fischer’s contract.

Soon after, Stein reached out to see if they could work together. “I was very intrigued by it because of the entrepreneurial aspect of being your own boss,” Fischer said.

Insider reporting can be a ruthless, zero-sum game. There are only so many scoops to go around, and journalists can be extremely protective of their sources. That makes Stein and Fischer an interesting team. Fischer refers to Stein as his “work dad” and keeps his contact info pinned to the top of the Messages app on his computer. They share intel and co-byline stories.

As Stein says, “We have access to more sources who can help with confirmations if we join forces on a given story.”

Most articles containing in-depth reporting sit behind the paywall, but they periodically publish free stories on Substack in addition to revealing scoops on social media. They also have more room to experiment on Substack; for example, they host exclusive chats on the platform, where they take questions from paid subscribers about the latest NBA rumors and theories.

In a rare mid-season move, Rip City Remix guard Isaac Nogués Gonzaléz is submitting paperwork to enter the 2025 NBA Draft. “I can defend a lot of positions. Not only the point guard. Not only the best player,” he told me. More here @TheSteinLine: https://t.co/EoT0fxXrq9 pic.twitter.com/rwvqq5xqNp

— Jake Fischer (@JakeLFischer) March 3, 2025

Their approach stands out in other ways as well. “We always say we try to be as gentlemanly as possible,” Fischer explained. For example, he tries not to call anyone before 10 a.m. When thinking through the language of scoops, he cares about avoiding certain phrases like “shopping a player,” which can have a negative, almost dehumanizing connotation. Even Fischer’s appearance differs from the typical corporate polish of NBA insiders. He’s scruffy and has long hair that’s smoothed back close to his shoulders.

“When a college kid asks me, ‘How do you develop sources?’ I tell them right away, ‘Stop trying to develop sources,’” Fischer said. “Just meet people and treat them as a person.”

The attitude sounds both strange and refreshing, but in some ways, it may prevent Fischer from doing whatever is necessary to get a scoop. In the world of insiders, there’s a fine line between source and friend. Wojnarowski, for example, faced criticism for publishing favorable stories about certain sources. However, access isn’t guaranteed, and if a source gets burned with incorrect information, they may never pick up the phone again.

“There are so many more walls to smash through today to find that same level of proximity to players, coaches, [and] front offices compared to what I faced for the first two-thirds of my career,” Stein said.

A few years ago, an agent vowed that his entire agency would never talk to Fischer again after the young reporter relayed bad information. This year, though, that agent called Fischer more than anyone else in the week leading up to the deadline, asking what he’d heard about one client, who ended up getting traded.

“I feel like if you treat people well, they always come back,” Fischer said. That mentality may be why he’s managed to carve out a unique role for himself in a constantly evolving sports media landscape. In addition to writing for The Stein Line, Fischer also produces freelance NBA video content for Bleacher Report.

Speaking of video, last summer, the NBA agreed to an 11-year, $76 billion new media rights deal that will change how fans can watch games. As part of the deal, streaming services like Amazon and NBC’s Peacock will broadcast some games starting next season. New NBA media partners could also mean new professional opportunities for an insider like Fischer.

Fischer told me he had “very cursory conversations” with some of the new media partners back in the fall as they began building out their broadcast teams. Now that the trade deadline is over, those conversations should pick back up. While Fischer could see himself collaborating with Stein for the rest of his career, he’d also welcome the chance to supplement his Substack writing with more on-camera work.

“But I would try to do it in my own way,” he said with a grin. “And I’m not cutting my hair.”