The thing is, I can only imagine this "Heat Index" concept is only going to last this season. Once the novelty wears off after this season, Windy can settle into being a National NBA Writer who happens to be based out of Miami and writes articles about the Heat when they play significant games throughout the season.
In his own words, Windhorst is aiming to be the new Marc Stein/JA Adande. Within 15 months, you'll see him contributing to NBA Fastbreak, NBA Coast to Coast and breaking league wide news on trades and things of that nature.
I'm sure that's what he's hoping, but the fact he didn't get an agreement up front leaves him very vulnerable to being pigeon-holed or axed.
With newspapers going under, and/or cutting back, it wouldn't be surprising in the least that ESPN would try to fill that gap by building up their own cadre of online beat writers. If necessary the league would just do it themselves, but as we saw with NBATV, they'd rather let their partners handle these things.
As you pointed out, being a headliner at ESPN involves giving interviews and doing the rounds on the various ESPN TV and radio shows. I doubt anybody checked out his "Q" rating at the ABR or the PD, but at ESPN Windy is going to have to compete with the pretty boys/girls, and others with more experience in front of the camera.
Nothing personal Brian