After Shams Charania broke the shocking news that the Los Angeles Lakers had acquired Luka Dončić in a blockbuster trade with the Dallas Mavericks, Pat McAfee took a victory lap on the ESPN insider’s behalf.
Exactly who McAfee’s victory lap is directed at, however, remains unclear.
Setting up Monday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show, the former All-Pro punter made note of the stunning deal, which also saw the Lakers send 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis to Dallas. In teasing that Charania would be joining the program later in the show, McAfee threw the massive scoop back in the face of detractors he claimed the NBA insider has within the ESPN family.
“Shams Charania comes into ESPN and he had haters behind the scenes who didn’t think he was supposed to be the senior insider,” McAfee said. “He drops a big ‘ol, ‘heh — suck it!’ Ninety-one million views on this tweet alone at this point. That’s going to be up over 100 million. You’re talking about maybe the biggest trade in the history of sports.”
McAfee didn’t specify who he was referencing, although it’s worth noting that most people pegged Charania as the most obvious candidate to replace Adrian Wojnarowski at ESPN following the former NBA insider’s stunning retirement last fall. But whoever it was, McAfee wasn’t done there, as the West Virginia product echoed a similar sentiment while introducing Charania later in the show.
“Sham-y, how you doing? You peacocking around a little bit around those ESPN studios? You know, some people probably had a little bit of a question, ‘Why are we bringing in Shams Charania? It should be me. I’m not helping this guy out.’ And all you do is fire off a tweet a little bit after midnight that changed the trajectory of the entire NBA. Not only this season, but forever. Congrats, Shams. We’re proud of you buddy.”
Unlike most of McAfee’s thinly veiled — or sometimes not even veiled — jabs at ESPN, it’s hard to tell who he’s talking about here. While the 37-year-old publicly (and privately) encouraged the Worldwide Leader to hire Charania following Woj’s retirement, he was largely stating the obvious, as it always appeared to be a matter of not “if” but rather “when” ESPN would hire the former Yahoo Sports insider to fill the void left by his former mentor’s retirement.
McAfee’s “it should be me” comment suggests that perhaps he’s referencing an on-air talent, in which case, it’s worth mentioning that ESPN reportedly considered replacing Wojnarowski in-house with talent including Jeff Passan and/or Adam Schefter — both of whom are regular guests on The Pat McAfee Show (Schefter even made an appearance on Monday).
Again, we don’t know exactly who McAfee was referencing here. But his repeated comments regarding Charania surely raised some eyebrows inside of Bristol and elsewhere.
