From Woj Bombs to Shams Calm: ESPN Insider Avoids Draft Spoilers

Shams Charania made his debut on ABC/ESPN’s NBA Draft coverage Wednesday night. But in a major change from predecessor Adrian Wojnarowski, he refrained from spoiling picks during Round 1 coverage.

Wojnarowski previously ruled over draft news like a feudal lord grandly dispensing news nuggets to his hungry hoops subjects. But the king of “Woj Bombs” has left the profession, and Charania, ESPN’s new senior NBA insider, took a more conservative approach Wednesday night. 

We’ve got early answers to four burning Shams questions as the 31-year-old wunderkind reaches out to seize what is his over the next two days:

Will Shams Tip Picks?

Early on, the answer appears to be a firm no. Charania didn’t appear on camera around the Mavericks’ No. 1 overall pick of Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Ditto for the Spurs’ No. 2 pick of Dylan Harper of Rutgers. Even when the time came for the 76ers’ hotly debated No. 3 overall pick, Charania was nowhere to be found as Philadelphia selected VJ Edgecombe. Instead, ESPN turned to front office guru Bobby Marks before the pick. During his reign, King Woj hilariously bypassed agreements by league media partners ESPN and TNT Sports not to spoil picks by tweeting teams were “leaning toward,” “tantalized” by,” “focused on” or “fixated on” certain players. But ESPN and the NBA don’t like insiders tipping picks under the belief it saps the suspense from the telecast. To that end, Charania announced the third, fourth, and fifth picks on X/Twitter between a minute before and right around the time they were announced on TV. When the Wizards took Tre Johnson of Texas at No. 6, he didn’t tweet at all. Adam Kaufman of SportsGrid applauded ESPN’s strategy, tweeting: “No @ShamsCharania draft spoilers tonight. I’m into it.” When another Twitter user joked ESPN must have “locked” Shams away, NBA writer Seerat Sohi noted: “No more rivals. He can afford to be benevolent.” At one point, FanDuel Sportsbook tweeted in frustration: “Shams has not tweeted in 17 minutes. What is happening ?!?!?!?!”

Will Another Insider Challenge Shams?

Maybe. If some ambitious NBA insider wants to challenge Charania, the draft is the perfect time to do it. During Wednesday’s Round 1, there weren’t many challenges. Still, that can change in a heartbeat if some insider wants to declare war by scooping Charania with a hot draft tip. Keep an eye on Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report and The Stein Line, who appeared ready to take up the challenge when it comes to player picks. 

Would That Change Charania’s Reporting?

You bet it could. Charania didn’t work this hard to become the No. 1 newsbreaker only to stand down for some up-and-comer. If a challenger regularly tips player picks, Charania and ESPN could turn on a dime and become more explicit in their reporting on TV and Twitter. We will find out.

What Will Charania’s TV Presence Be?

The knock on Woj was that he was lousy on TV—but did his best work on draft night. Charania is better than Woj on TV. But he’s still raw and learning. Early on in draft coverage, he looked cool and comfortable under the red-hot spotlight at Barclays Center.

Charania is set to provide breaking news updates on Wednesday and Thursday nights, mostly on a studio desk with host Malika Andrews. Charania has a loyal friend in Pat McAfee, who claimed some ESPN “suits” didn’t want to hire him as Woj’s replacement.

Meanwhile, Woj has put down the thesaurus. The former insider’s last tweet to his 6.4 million followers came on Tuesday, and it was a mundane one about his job with St. Bonaventure basketball. ESPN declined to comment when asked about Charania.