There are a few NBA reporters who are at the top of the reporting game when it comes to getting scoops on a national level, but the two that stand out the most are ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania — who learned under Woj at Yahoo.
During events like the NBA Draft and the first day of free agency, some fans will keep track of who’s getting the scoops the fastest (and the biggest ones), but they, along with Chris Haynes and Marc Stein, are the preeminent scoop-masters. For NBA players, they often learn news about their own teams (and sometimes even about themselves) from Shams and Woj before they hear it from their own team or agent, which sometimes leads to funny responses on Twitter when a big trade goes down.
This year, part of the scoop game is learning who is going in and out of the league’s health and safety protocols, most recently with Charania breaking the news of Kevin Durant being sidelined for the Nets as a close contact when he was pulled right before tipoff of a game last week. This week on KD’s podcast, The ETCs, he spoke at the end on that situation and joked about how Shams manages to get all of his scoops, with the minute details he manages to have — and his tweets about Trump getting COVID seemingly before anyone else had that info.
“Shams a creep, yo! I remember Shams — Shams now, you never know where he is, yo, cause you can wear a mask now. This motherf*cker’s probably outside the house. But Shams, I don’t know how he gets this info, but he, I mean, he said I was in the car with no mask and we went back-and-forth, back-and-forth, and I was like, sh*t.
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“That’s some crazy news to break, Shams. That’s crazy news to break, man, when you’ve been doing the Draft for the last 5 years. He goes smack to the White House. … He’s some type of Central Intelligence, bro. He’s got something at the crib, gadgets. His basement is full of sh*t. This man is locked in, with all respect.”
It’s always hilarious to hear players talk about Shams and Woj because they can’t even deny what they report, they just can’t figure out how they get the info. I do like the idea of CIA Shams tapping into phones with spy gear and gadgets and stuff, but instead of using that for like, trading state secrets, he’s just breaking NBA trade news.