Shams Charania

Shams Charania (/ˈʃɑːmz/ SHAHMZ; born April 1, 1994) is an American sports reporter for ESPN, where he covers the National Basketball Association. He previously worked for The Athletic, Stadium, and FanDuel TV.

Shams Charania
Charania in 2023
Born	(1994-04-01) April 1, 1994 (age 31) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education	Loyola University Chicago
Occupation	Sports Reporter for ESPN

Early life

Charania attended New Trier High School and graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2017.^[1]

Career

He began his sportswriting career at age 17 covering the Chicago Bulls for ChicagoNow, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune. In 2012, Charania began writing for RealGM, and reporting small transactions around the league.^[2][3] After several years, Charania caught the attention of Adrian Wojnarowski, then working for Yahoo Sports.^{[citation needed]}

After joining Yahoo, Charania began to break news of deals and high-profile signings in the summer of 2016,^[4] including Dwight Howard's move to the Atlanta Hawks, DeMar DeRozan's re-signing with the Toronto Raptors, Luol Deng's signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, and Jamal Crawford's signing with the Los Angeles Clippers.^[5] This set off a friendly rivalry between Wojnarowski and Charania.^[6]

On August 14, 2018, Shams announced via his Twitter account he would be leaving Yahoo Sports for The Athletic and Stadium at the end of the month.^[7] In 2023, Charania reported the first three picks of the 2023 NFL draft on Twitter ahead of even NFL insiders.^[8]

Charania was a paid contributor for the sports gambling company FanDuel.^[9][10] His work for the company, alongside his work as a reporter, has been described by articles in SBNation and the Washington Post as a potential conflict of interest, as his reporting can shift betting odds and potentially reveal pertinent info to FanDuel.^[11] SBNation.com documented two cases where tweets by Charania giving information attributed to anonymous sources caused wild swings in the betting market, but which later turned out to be without foundation.^[10]

On October 7, 2024, Charania announced that he would be joining ESPN as the company's Senior NBA Insider.^[12] He replaced Wojnarowski, who left the role to become General Manager of the St. Bonaventure Men's Basketball program.^[13]

On February 2, 2025, Charania broke news of the Los Angeles Lakers trading Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks for Luka Dončić in a multi-team deal; the trade was so surprising that many people, including NBA players and Charania himself, thought his phone had been hacked.^[14][15][16]