ESPN’s Brian Windhorst Just Secretly Used Stephen A. Smith’s Office for a Rich Eisen Show Interview

Brian Windhorst joined the Rich Eisen Show after Game 3 of the NBA Finals, and it took Rich about ten seconds to realize something was off about the backdrop.

"Are you in Stephen A's office? I'm seeing photographs and I see that cowboy hat," Rich said.

Windhorst, caught, came clean. "Yes, I'm in Stephen A's office right now I am because, long story short, there's a studio issue." He explained that he had planned to do the hit from a studio, but the lighting was wrong, so he relocated to the one office that happened to have a cowboy hat, suit swatches, and a figurine in it.

That figurine became its own storyline. Windhorst admitted he had angled the chair specifically so the camera wouldn't catch a small statue of Stephen A. Smith behind him. Once Rich spotted it, the cover was blown. "It's mildly off-putting," Windhorst said, before adding that he was watching it closely. "To be honest with you, I'm keeping an eye on it as much as I can because I don't trust it."

Rich saw it the other way. "I think it's keeping an eye on you," he said.

Windhorst, who grew up in the era of Chucky, agreed he was rattled enough that he wasn't going to touch the lights. "I'm not going to turn off the light. I'm just going to leave it like that."

Then came the real question. Did Stephen A. Smith actually know any of this was happening? Windhorst's answer was simple. "No." He said the crew had asked around among the people who work outside the office about whether Stephen A would mind, and the responses were mixed. "There were three people and they all kind of gave different looks," he said. One waved it off. Another did not. "So, if you see me on the street, you'll know what happened."

Rich thanked him for the time and for putting everything at risk. Windhorst, of the Hoop Collective podcast, took the borrowed European leather chair, the suit swatches, and the watchful figurine in stride. Whether Stephen A. Smith does the same is the part still to be determined.