{"id":91288,"date":"2024-08-19T19:05:37","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T23:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=91288"},"modified":"2024-08-19T19:05:37","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T23:05:37","slug":"nba-popular-insider-shams-charania-heading-into-media-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/19\/nba-popular-insider-shams-charania-heading-into-media-free-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular NBA Insider Heading Into Media Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As he heads into a pivotal stretch of his media career, longtime NBA insider Shams Charania&#8217;s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/08\/19\/sports\/nba-insider-shams-charania-leaves-stadium-after-six-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has decided to leave<\/a> <em>Stadium<\/em> after six years with the outlet,\u201d per The Post\u2019s Ryan Glasspiegel.<\/p>\n<p>The end of Charania\u2019s deals with The Athletic and <em>FanDuel TV<\/em> is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/07\/16\/sports\/star-nba-insider-shams-charania-a-looming-free-agent\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also coming up<\/a>,\u201d with The Post reporting in mid-July that they were set to expire \u201cin the next month or two.\u201d If accurate, Charania could become a free agent right before the offseason ends. However, \u201cit remains up in the air as to whether he will stay at either or both as his contract negotiations continue\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Per NBA.com, Oct. 22 officially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/key-dates\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">marks the start<\/a> of the 2024-25 season.<\/p>\n<h2>Popular NBA Insider Shams Charania Heading Into Media Free Agency<\/h2>\n<p>Now 30 years old, Charania has become a fixture in the NBA media space.<\/p>\n<p>The Chicago native began his journalism career in late 2010, writing for ChicagoNow, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune. Less than two years later, he earned a role as an NBA writer for RealGM, reporting on league transactions. At this time, he worked briefly as a nursing unit concierge for Northshore University Health System.<\/p>\n<p>Charania got his big break in 2015 upon being discovered by Adrian Wojnarowski. At the time, Wojnarowski was employed by Yahoo Sports. The two would enjoy friendly competition in the insider space, Charania breaking news on myriad high-profile signings. After three years, he announced that he would be joining The Athletic and Stadium as the lead senior NBA insider.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I am excited to announce I am joining The Athletic (<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheAthletic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@theathletic<\/a>) and Stadium (<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WatchStadium?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@watchstadium<\/a>) as the lead senior NBA Insider\/Writer and Analyst later this month&#8230; <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gHYh8Ihzb7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/gHYh8Ihzb7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1029350798575247362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 14, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Until accepting a role as a <em>FanDuel TV<\/em> partner in Oct. 2022, those are the only roles he\u2019s held since then.<\/p>\n<p>Now, he\u2019s not only one of the most recognizable figures in the media, but The Athletic and Stadium are as well. The Athletic is particularly favored, emerging as a premier digital sports journalism publication. They\u2019re even giving ESPN, long considered to be \u2014literally and figuratively \u2014\u2018the worldwide leader in sports\u2019 a run for their money. Had ESPN not hired Wojnarowski in 2017, it\u2019s possible that they would be the go-to source of NBA reporting.<\/p>\n<p>All of that being said, wherever Charania heads next, his employers can expect a healthy return on investment.<\/p>\n<h3>Conflict Of Interest<\/h3>\n<p>An interesting aspect of Charania\u2019s potential free agency is that he\u2019s been criticized for being an NBA insider while being paid by FanDuel, an online gambling company. Particularly with the rising popularity of sports betting, this has been deemed <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/18\/raptors-player-receives-lifetime-ban-for-gambling-a-watershed-moment-for-the-nba\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">a potential conflict of interest<\/a>. Of course, just because Charania works with them doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s violating any journalistic ethics. Nonetheless, it\u2019s an argument that won\u2019t disappear so long as that relationship exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As he heads into a pivotal stretch of his media career, longtime NBA insider Shams Charania&#8217;s \u201chas decided to leave Stadium after six years with the outlet,\u201d per The Post\u2019s Ryan Glasspiegel. The end of Charania\u2019s deals with The Athletic and FanDuel TV is \u201calso coming up,\u201d with The Post reporting in mid-July that they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":91294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,3],"tags":[2388,980],"class_list":["post-91288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-news","tag-shams-charania","tag-sports-media"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}