The 2024-2025 NBA season had a lot of big moments, both on the court and off. One moment that sits near the top took place this past February, when the Lakers acquired Luka Doncic from the Mavericks in a blockbuster deal that also sent Anthony Davis to Dallas.
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Breaking that news at the start of the year was NBA Insider Shams Charania, who has become the go-to guy for big stories surrounding the league ever since Adrian Wojnarowski retired. It was a hectic time for Charania since the move came right before the NBA trade deadline for the season.
“It was a whirlwind that night. I slept like 30 minutes that night,” stated the 31-year-old insider during a recent interview on The Sports Reporters.
“That deal happened on a Saturday night. On Wednesday, I had gotten a tip from a few sources that essentially the Mavs and the Lakers were talking about a deal. There was a player they were discussing,” he added.
Shams detailed how a lot of names were mentioned in this deal, which made him question what was going on. It wasn’t until the very last minute that he learned the big move involved The Don.
Shams on breaking the Luka trade:
“I slept like 30 minutes that night. It took me 7 minutes to get all the details, confirm it, write up the tweet. The one thing that eats at me is having a typo in a tweet. I hating editing tweets. There was (no editor) that was up” pic.twitter.com/z2vX3d5qK0
— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) August 7, 2025
“Obviously, everyone buried the lead. By the time I got down to it, it took seven minutes. By the time I got the tip on it, it was 11:05 Central. 11:12 Central I tweeted it. It took me seven minutes to get all the details,” he stated.
Dropping that tweet was the biggest story of Shams’ career thus far. But when looking back on it, he does still feel a bit anxious. Not because of the speed in which he got the story out there, but how vital it is for such a breaking story to not have any typos.
“The one thing that eats at me, is having a typo in a tweet. I hate editing tweets. I hate it with a passion. It eats at me, even the slightest typo. You can’t have any typo, you can’t get anything wrong.”
Fortunately for the reporter, he got it 100% right. He mentioned seconds later that there’s no editor up that late to look over a breaking news tweet, and in the past, even admitted that his hands were shaking. It’s understandable. The league and its fans now look at him as THE guy for accurate news. Sure, some people still thought the tweet was fake, but in the end, they learned the truth.
And it’s not like Shams is a stranger to X (fka Twitter). He’s been on the social media juggernaut ever since 2010. Why that year? “You know why I did 2010? Because of LeBron James,” revealed Shams in the same interview.
If you had forgotten, that was the same year that The King was figuring out his “Decision,” the one that ultimately landed him in Miami to kickstart his championship legacy. A lot of people signed up for it because of that moment, and the billions of other tidbits that have since dominated the web since.
I wish I could say that Shams sending out tweets was the only thing that occurred on the platform. It’s filled with more negativity and misinformation than ever before. Fortunately, at least in basketball, it’s nice to know that there is someone reliable like Charania doing the work.
