NBA Insider trading
Charania league’s most sought after commodity
THE biggest NBA free agent remaining is not a player. It is NBA insider phenom Shams Charania.
Charania’s contract is up next month with Yahoo Sports, sources told The Post. A year removed from graduating from college, Charania has put himself in position as the second best news breaker in the NBA.
If ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is the LeBron James of NBA transaction news, then Charania is like the Greek Freak. Charania, 24, is barely older than Giannis Antetokounmpo, the 23-year-old Bucks star.
Interestingly enough, it is Wojnarowski who has created the market for Charania. Wojnarowski has served as a mentor to Charania, hiring him to Yahoo’s The Vertical from the website RealGM when he was still in college.
Last year, Wojnarowski left Yahoo for ESPN on a lucrative, fiveyear deal, allowing Charania to become the face of Yahoo’s NBA coverage. Charania looks to Wojnarowski as one of his mentors, though these days is coming the closest to competing with Wojnarowski for scoops.
So if Yahoo doesn’t retain Charania, where could he wind up? ESPN could basically end the NBA scoop game by reuniting Wojnarowski and Charania in Bristol. Besides Wojnarowski, ESPN already has a strong array of NBA reporters, including Ramona Shelburne.
Turner/NBA TV/Bleacher Report could try to make a bigger impact in terms of competing with ESPN. Charania worked on Turner’s team-centric Final Four telecast that included his alma mater, Loyola Chicago. The Athletic, the two-plus-yearold subscription site that has raised $20 million, could try to build an NBA section similar to The Vertical around Charania like they did with Ken Rosenthal on baseball.
Another option, according to sources, is NBC Sports Regional Networks. NBC owns the rights to about a third of NBA local broadcasts, including the Celtics and Bulls. It is looking for a national insider to appear on its pre- and postgame local shows across the country. Besides Charania, NBC has shown interest in Yahoo’s Chris Mannix for the job. Mannix already does work for NBC.
Yahoo could try to continue to compete for supremacy on its NBA insider coverage that began with Wojnarowski and now has been centered around Charania.
When either breaks a story, fans often respond with hilarious GIFS on Twitter showing either Wojnarowski or Charania dunking on the other. Depending on who had the story, they are dubbed a “Woj bomb” or “Shams Wow.”
Now, the biggest “Shams Wow” of the summer will involve Charania himself.
➤ ESPN is looking for what it is advertising as a “Project-Content producer, Katie Nolan.” The job description listed on ESPN’s site says the person will contribute to all aspects of production related to content featuring Katie Nolan. ESPN and Nolan are trying to fully figure out her role at the network after signing her to a salary of more than $1 million per year.
Currently, Nolan hosts the threeto-five minute “SportsCenter” Snapchats a few times a week. She also does a podcast and occasionally appears as a guest on some talk shows. ESPN has announced a once-a-week social media show is in the works, but there is no timetable yet about when it will be on.