Draymond Green has entered the Shams Charania MVP leak debate. And he didn’t exactly hold back.
Speaking on his podcast Monday, the Warriors forward blasted Shams Charania for reporting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the NBA MVP hours before Prime Video’s planned on-air announcement Sunday night.
“I thought that was embarrassing,” Green said, via Awful Announcing. “The NBA has to do something about that.”
Charania initially reported Sunday morning that Gilgeous-Alexander had won his second straight MVP award, later confirming the news during an appearance on SportsCenter.
That immediately sparked backlash from fans and media personalities who felt the league’s official reveal had essentially been ruined before the television broadcast even aired.
Green clearly agreed.
“To tweet at six o’clock in the morning who the NBA MVP is, it’s actually embarrassing,” he said. “It makes our league look like we have no organization.”
Green’s frustration seemed less about Charania specifically and more about the larger relationship between the NBA, its media partners and insider culture.
“What are we doing?” Green asked. “If there’s supposed to be an announcement on Amazon Prime, the announcement has to happen on Amazon Prime.”
The four-time champion even suggested Commissioner Adam Silver should step in to prevent similar situations moving forward.
“This is something Commissioner Silver has to do something about,” Green said. “This can’t happen.”
Ironically, Green is also part of the television ecosystem at the center of the controversy. He has appeared as an analyst on Inside the NBA and is expected to join the show again during the Eastern Conference finals. Of course, Inside the NBA now airs on ESPN, the same network that employs Charania.
Charania defended himself Monday on The Pat McAfee Show, saying reporting major news quickly is literally his job. Green wasn’t buying it.
“It also can’t be that important to leak information,” he said. “Come on.”
At this point, the whole thing has turned into a larger debate about modern sports coverage itself. Is an insider supposed to sit on verified news for the sake of television drama? Or is breaking the story first always the priority?
The NBA world clearly still doesn’t agree on the answer.
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