When does “blowing up someone’s phone” go from metaphor to reality? When they break the news of the most surprising NBA trade in a long while, apparently. ESPN senior NBA insider Shams Charania recently spoke to Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel on a variety of topics, but he had a particularly interesting note on what the reaction he received after his report of the Luka Dončić-Anthony Davis trade did to his phone.
Charania had previously spoken about receiving around 300 text messages after that newsbreak, many of which were wondering if he was hacked. (He even said he had the same thought at one point when getting the details here.) But his comments to Glasspiegel stand out for the details on that response, who he did take a call from, and how his phone reacted:
It was an out-of-body night. Even afterwards. My phone had 300 messages. Call on call on call. I took a few calls—a couple people around the league, Pat McAfee, Stephen A. Smith. SportsCenter producer Tom DeCorte called me a few times. I had to take his call because he was wondering what everyone else was wondering—did I get hacked?
My phone was malfunctioning. It was overheating.
My first notion after I break the trade was: What, why, how, when did this happen? I have to be ready because I’m going to do further reporting and going on TV about it. My first instinct isn’t about responding to people who thought I might have been hacked. I’m not even thinking like that in the moment.
It wasn’t until after that where I was like, Oh, people didn’t really think this was real in the moment.
There are some further interesting details in there. Charania told Glasspiegel he had some idea for days that some level of Lakers-Mavericks trade would happen, and that helped him take the eventual deal seriously when he did get those details. Beyond that, he has some wider comments on his career (he’s taking it day-by-day, and feels he has improved on the TV side, but still has more room to grow there). And he even has a notable response to the reaction to his 2022 comments to Glasspiegel that he’s on his phone 17-18 hours of the day many days, with that rising to 20 or more at key times (something he’s discussed since then too):
“It’s one of the most frequent questions I get, for sure. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time on their phone. I feel like I get a bad rap. When you put that story out, and even afterward, I always get a bad rap from people.
“I don’t think I’m the only one who spends a lot of time on my phone. I might have moments of the year [trade deadline, free agency] where it’s a little bit extreme, but I think it’s just slightly more than the average person.”
Those numbers are still seemingly much higher than the average person. But it’s interesting that Charania a. gets a lot of questions about that and b. thinks his phone usage (and corresponding lack of sleep) isn’t that out of the norm. And, given that, it’s a good thing that his phone didn’t terminally overheat here.
