> “The thing that changed is they became double agents,” John Skipper, the former ESPN president, told me. “They call people and say, ‘Tell me what you’re up to,’ and the quid pro quo is, ‘I’ll tell you a little something I’ve heard.’ You’re suddenly on the road to being part of causation if somebody acts upon something you share.”
>The longtime front-office executive told me that information from insider reporters could even help a GM save a buck. “Woj or Shams might say, ‘Hey, don’t get levered up on Player X; he’s not gonna get an offer from his team,’” the executive said. “There are times when they have information that has prevented me from making a mistake in terms of the magnitude of a contract offer or the inclusion of a specific asset in a deal.”
[Source](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/shams-charania-nba-insider-the-athletic-new-york-times-profile.html)
by AashyLarry
25 Comments
Well considering Woj’s tweet wording about the Bogi deal helped screw us in 2020-2021, I’m not sure this is always the case
Damn that’s scummy as hell if Woj and Shams are messing with a player’s bag like that
Fuck them if true
nbpa probably wants to limit this but they’d have no way to prove this is deliberate. wonder who got screwed the most by this.
It took until you called him Woj to know who AW meant lol
Shams is not a journalist. He’s a public relations shill, plain and simple.
Never even considered this but it’s definitely likely
This makes a ton of sense. GMs need a reason to keep giving them scoops and this is way more valuable than puff pieces
I’m not surprised at all, to get higher ups to willingly give you info, you have to give them something valuable as well. Information is power in the NBA in a lot of circumstances, and Woj and Shams are probably doing some dirty stuff to make sure they are in good relations with their major contacts.
I’d also say it gives them a ton of leverage, teams that don’t give them info now are at a disadvantage in terms of knowledge.
Schefter has done this for years for the NFL, I don’t know why this would be all that surprising. It’s still scummy, but the precedent existed and billionaires are some of the most imitative creatures on earth.
Yall thought these news breakers were honest, upstanding citizens? Lol reality check.
Interesting to see if the agents or NBPA look into this.
They don’t like when people fuck with their clients making money.
Littlefinger and Lord Varys
This wouldn’t shock me at all. There’s a reason they become insiders and get scoops. They play the same game with agents
I think it was pretty obviousn but undeniable after the whole Dillon Brooks affair.
I do like a good Woj bomb, but they would exist without him or Charania. They are jist thrash that ruins any sense of surprise from anything NBA.
I recall Charania ruined thw surprise of every draft pick.
I mean we all kind of knew this already
I’m sure it’s an old guy thing, but I literally do not understand how Woj and Shams are these powerbrokers based on the ability to break news .1 seconds earlier than a press release
Both of these dudes have always rubbed me the wrong way
So these guys aren’t just grifters. They’re actively manipulating player contracts and front office decisions.
This should be a major sports scandal, and that’s not even touching the disgusting conflicts of interest inherent in Shams’ FanDuel arrangement.
Who TF says Charania and AW????
It’s Shams and Woj.
This is kinda how I figured it worked tbh. I’ve always assumed that to get some information, shams or woj would give some pieces of information they got from another team.
damn that’s fucked
Who my guy shams piss off to have this come to light
wow these dudes about to get investigated
This is obvious. Nobody’s giving him this information for free.
It’s confirmation of what we all already knew. At the end of the day, as a fan, it’s entertainment, I like the scoops, I like the drama, so I honestly couldn’t care less on that level. But this is also why players across leagues have become vested in their individual power over the years. Stories like this only reinforce their thinking. They truly are viewed as little more than commodities.