NBA insider Shams Charania shares his 18-hour work routine to become a successful millionaire

Shams Charania tweeted his way to the top of the NBA news, and now he’s a role model for modern sport journalism. How did he do it? The Pakistani American, who grew up in northern Chicago, asked for his first job to write about basketball for local news media when he was barely an adult, and simply never stopped.

In a recent profile written about him, the basketball insider gave details about just how seriously he takes his job. When it comes to reporting news in the league, Shams says it’s not only about being extremely connected within the NBA, but also about working tirelessly around the clock.

Charania estimated that he sends out about 500 texts, calls and/or emails per day, and spends roughly around 18 hours a day on his phone either trying to obtain new information or simply breaking out news about the U.S. basketball league.

The Shams Charania NBA scoop machine is intense:

• Sends ~500 texts / emails a day
• Works 18 hours a day and gears down to 12 hours for vacay (preferably poolside, so he can be on phone)
• Quit pick-up basketball because he missed a huge coaching scoop once while playing pic.twitter.com/7Tq7X8meEa

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) October 15, 2023

“My mind is consumed by, What can I do today to get information that I didn’t have yesterday? ” he told the press. “It consumes everything I do.”

However, these full-time insiders still need to find some rest, despite the fact that the NBA world can sometimes be a never-ending circus. According to Shams, he gets his time to decompress typically towards the end of the summer, when all the fuzz around the offseason is finally coming to an end.

Charania described his “vacations” in a very peculiar way, considering he never really stops working. The reporter says his labor hours drop down to 12 when he needs a break, but somehow always tries to be in a scenario where he is close to his phone, just in case.

“I prefer the poolside sit-and-do-nothing vacation, so I can still be on my phone as constant as I wanna be,” he shared. “But did it get to, like, 14 hours? Yes. Did it get to, like, 12 or 13 hours some days? Yes. I think that’s a win.”

Top media sources and reporters believe that Charania and Adrian Wojnarowski shares the only true rivalry in NBA journalism

“It’s the only real rivalry left in the NBA,” basketball reporter Frank Isola said. “Everyone else likes each other.” Not only was ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski a sort of role model for Shams early in his career, nowadays fellow journalists assure that they compete against each other.

Also, many of the top media sources believe that they both assist in tampering with player contracts just to benefit those who provide them with new revelations. The New York Magazine posted an article that featured a quote from an NBA executive who guaranteed both reporters take part in this.

“Woj or Shams might say, ‘Hey, don’t get levered up on Player X; he’s not gonna get an offer from his team,’” the executive told the magazine. “There are times when they have information that has prevented me from making a mistake in terms of the magnitude of a contract offer or the inclusion of a specific asset in a deal.”

As for Charania, he’s convinced that now Wojnarowski has become a media source himself. “Confirming news with certain people is the same as texting it straight to Woj,” he explained.