For the first time in seven iterations of the NBA Draft, NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski was not part of the ESPN coverage. Wojnarowski had been regarded as one of the preeminent sports insiders and posted information about where players would be selected ahead of time on his X account, leading to consternation from viewers of the broadcast in receiving these spoilers. Prior to the 2018 NBA Draft, ESPN reportedly told its reporters not to reveal selections on social media before they are announced, but Wojnarowski frequently got around this instruction by using phraseology that did not indicate any finality. Shams Charania, who is the new senior NBA insider at ESPN following Wojnarowski’s departure to serve as the general manager of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team, took a different approach.
SportsRadio 610 morning host Sean Pendergast found it refreshing that Charania refrained from revealing the information ahead of time. While he did share news about trades and other transactions throughout the night, Charania did not divulge information about all of the selections, nor did he post about every draft pick in the first round. As a result, Pendergast felt that the viewing experience was “very pleasant” and enjoyed following along in this manner.
“I like to have Twitter open during sporting events, including the NBA Draft, and Adrian Wojnarowski made a cottage industry out of not just spoiling the next pick,” Pendergast said. “He would tweet picks out that were two or three picks down the line. If it were at six on TV, he would be tweeting out who the eighth pick is going to be because he already knew who it was. That’s annoying, and you can say, ‘Well just block him or mute him.’ Once it’s out there, it’s going to get filtered to you. If you’re a basketball fan, it’s going to find its way onto your timeline somehow. Shams did not do that last night.”
Seth Payne, co-host of the show, acknowledged that he feels a similar way during the NFL Draft and has tried not to check X in recent years because people are having conversations about picks that have been reported ahead of the official announcements. Although he never knew whether or not to complain about it, he feels like the social media conversations ultimately make it difficult to keep everything in sequence.
“I’m with you, although I think that Shams Charania is just – he’s probably, he’s better at – he doesn’t have the pelts on the wall yet to just tell his employer, ‘No, I’m going to do it the way I want to do it,’” Payne said. “He’ll be doing it eventually.”
“It serves no purpose is my problem,” Pendergast replied. “It’s just Woj showing off that he knows these picks. There’s no — anyways, I don’t want to get too bogged down on that one. Let me just say this. It made for a more pleasant watching experience for me and others that I saw seeing that on social media.”
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