Everyone — and we mean everyone — thought Shams Charania was being hacked in the early hours of Sunday morning.
ESPN’s foremost NBA insider broke the internet when he reported that the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks had agreed to terms to swap Luka Dončić and Anthony Davis in a blockbuster trade. And everyone thought that his social media account had been compromised.
No, the deal itself was very real, despite concerns that Charania no longer had his own social media presence. That wasn’t a concern for Charania, who posted, “Yes, this is real,” but that was only after he thought his phone itself had been hacked — not his X page.
“I thought my phone was hacked when I got the text messages with the details of the trade and when I got wind of the deal,” Charania informed Mike Greenberg on ESPN’s Get Up on Monday morning.
“I thought my phone was hacked.” 😅
—@ShamsCharania after receiving text messages about the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade pic.twitter.com/uhAbDZBQAn
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) February 3, 2025
The sheer shock of the trade was enough to make even the most plugged-in NBA fans question reality, and for a moment, it seemed like Charania himself wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t caught in some elaborate prank.
But after a few minutes, it became clear — this wasn’t a prank, a hoax or a late-night fever dream. It was the kind of league-shifting move that instantly rewrote the NBA landscape.
“But, you peel back the curtain, and for the Mavericks, they honestly, internally, believe that this move puts them in a better position to win a championship,” Charania continued. “Of course, there are issues that they had, obviously, with Luka Dončić — his conditioning levels to an extent. But, they have that belief, and when you think about the next several months, the next few years, we’re going to know the exact answer as to whether they were right in this decision or if they were wrong.
“And they want to pair Anthony Davis as a center, defensively, with Kyrie Irving. They probably need another addition, as well, in the backcourt. They have three first round picks now that they can use. And I don’t think the Lakers at any point this season expected to be in contention to move Anthony Davis. They didn’t seek Anthony Davis. But, when Nico Harrison, the Mavericks’ general manager, called and offered Luka Dončić, that changed the game.”
What also changed the game was what it took for Charania to convince himself and everyone else that his phone hadn’t been hacked. This one felt too unreal to be true in an era of viral misinformation and hacks becoming commonplace.
And had Charania actually been hacked, he probably would’ve been tweeting about meme coins instead of the biggest trade in recent NBA history.
