[Torre] takes shots at Charania: “News-breaker is vocabulary we have to change. Is this actually news? Are you being fed this by an agent? By the way, if you use an anonymous source, why? The whole ‘League source tells me 6th man signs a contract…’ — I don’t think we need to deepthroat this one“

32 comments

  2. Hard agree. Anonymous sources have their time and place, but overuse just erodes trust in the industry as a whole.

  7. I like reading Shams “breaking news” tweets for the little spin he puts on them. You can always tell if he got the scoop from the player’s agent or from the team.

    “The Pacers lock in one of their best defenders after a playoff run in which Nesmith started all 23 games on the run to the Finals”

    “Daniels won the NBA’s Most Improved Player of the Year, was runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, made first team All-Defense and finished with 229 steals last season, the most in a season by any player since Gary Payton in 1995-96.”

    “Braun, the No. 21 pick in the 2022 NBA draft, has been a developmental find and success for the Nuggets brass. Denver’s top execs, Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace, made it a priority to negotiate a new long-term deal to lock in Braun as part of the franchise’s core moving forward.

  8. this is why i like Keith Smith’s summer league roundups, where part of it has team staff directly talking honestly about their own players

    ie: https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/2912/eastern-conference-summer-league-notes

    > Kobe Bufkin: “I’m a little worried about him. Athletically, he’s fine. He’s too quick and too strong for guys here (Las Vegas Summer League). But he’s got to shoot it better. And he has to stay healthy. Hopefully it will come together for him,” a Hawks scout said.

  9. Shams will not take this lightly. I expect something in the next hour about an anonymous member of a front office speculating that Giannis is considering asking out after having to make a game winner against the Pacers g-league team.

  10. Agree with this 100%. My favorite part of this is when these guys do the follow up tweet where they go “This contract was negotiated by Phil Leotardo and Ralph Cifaretto from Wise Guy Sports Management LLC” as if anyone gives even the remotest iota of a fuck about that.

  14. Yeah, I mean he hit the nail on the head – Charania is a mouthpiece for teams and agents and owners, he’s not a journalist, he’s not doing any sort of actual reporting. Someone calls him and tells him news and then he goes on ESPN and regurgitates it. The draft is maybe the best example – who needs Shams tweeting the picks three minutes before they’re announced?

  16. I remember back in the day it was “Breaking news, Shaq and Kobe hate each other according to league sources Shaq and Kobe”

  17. Btw Deep Throat is a reference to the Watergate informant, not anything explicit! I just felt like that would be lost on some of the users here.

  19. I think there is a place for both journalists. Sham’s keeps us on the loop on transactions, rumours, and injuries in the league, and Pablo on investigative news.

    I doubt Sham’s even responds to him.

  20. What are people even yapping about in this thread? Who cares if Charania says anonymous?

  21. Torre is being disingenuous when he says he doesn’t understand why it always has to be anonymous sources. It’s pretty basic that you keep your sources generally anonymous in that type of industry because if Pepe from Minnesota told me Marty was signing a 6th man contract this week. But then two weeks later I say “an anonymous sources tells me Marty got into a fight with Johnny in practice” every person in the world is going to be looking at Pepe as the source even if Pepe wasn’t even aware of the fight. 

  22. Shams aside, I think we ought to examine the idea of “sports journalism” entirely. The instances in which something nefarious is actually uncovered are so rare — the rest of it is players complaining about contracts, soap opera shit about who’s driving the bus, and deep dives into second aprons — it’s more like entertainment content than journalism.

  24. I’ll never forget Woj had to jump on the broadcast milliseconds before the Magic drafted Paolo just so he could say it was going to happen. Self serving trash

  25. Its surprising to me how many of you believe Pablo said something important here.

    There’s some legitimate worries with access journalism and Pablo addressed none of them in this snippet.

    The problem isnt giving Shams credit for breaking news when he is. The problem is when they sane wash something on a sources behalf.

    But if you’re media literate, that is also obvious.

    Pablos yelling at a cloud here.

  26. I know we all love circle jerking Pablo but having an anonymous source isn’t weird or unusual at all lol Shams clearly has inside knowledge

  27. I understand Pablo’s sentiment and I kinda feel the same but all NBA fans including me to some extent LOVE trade rumors, roster speculation and last but not least soap-opera gossip for men.

    As much as I dislike it but NBA needed people like Woj and now Shams even though they are kinda like the puppets to the owners / FO / agents.

  28. This dick measuring is dumb. There’s obviously space for both hard-hitting investigative journalism and access-based “scoop” reporting in the sports media ecosystem and there’s no reason both need to be done by the same person.

    Pablo is clearly excellent at the investigative stuff and should keep doing that. Shams is clearly excellent at getting scoops and should keep doing that. Not everything needs to be a scandal to be news.

    Yes, I want to know when my team extends our 6th man. We care about the sport / entertainment part too, not just the politics / business scandals.

  30. I never liked these “newsbreaker”-type journalists. All they do is report something that is made official two minutes later.

  31. I used to watch this dude on PTI like 12-13 years ago, and he looks younger now? Filipino genetics man.

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