Adrian Wojanarowski unleashed one last shocking bomb on Sept. 18 when he announced that he was retiring from the news business and taking his talents to St. Bonaventure to serve as general manager of the Bonnies basketball program. Conversation quickly turned to ESPN's plans for a post-Woj world and who the company would target to fill the void left by one of the best newsbreakers in all of sports. For almost two weeks now we have been treated to reports about several different possibilities yet may not have any additional clarity.
Let's tick through those quickly.
Mere hours after the announcement, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports highlighted Shams Charania and Chris Haynes, two of Woj's main rivals at other outlets as possibilities.
My sources tell me ESPN will likely talk to Shams Charania, Wojanrowski’s former Yahoo Sports protégé, and former ESPNer Chris Haynes. Both are pending free agents, according to theNew York Post. The 30-year-old Charania’s deals withThe Athletic, Stadium, and FanDuel are all up. Ditto for the 42-year-old Haynes, who has plenty of on-camera experience at TNT.
A few days later, John Ourand of Puck suggested that there may not be a 1-to-1 replacement for Wojanarowski. Tim Bontemps, Tim MacMahon, Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst are all currenty under ESPN contract and could work together to pick up any slack. Zach Lowe, we learned, will not be part of the plans as he was laid off by the company last week.
Then Andrew Marchand of The Athletic wrote a few days ago that Jeff Passan, ESPN's top baseball reporter, may switch beats and turn his attention to basketball to become Woj 2.0. The same piece also mentions Charania as a top candidate.
If all of that wasn't enough, McCarthy hopped back in the fray on Monday to write that Adam Schefter may be tapped to cover both NFL and NBA news for ESPN in a quest to become the ultimate insider.
So there are a lot of possibilities. Not all of the possibilities have been explored either as ESPN may opt to do something totally different. An average consumer could be forgiven for feeling like they don't have a firmer grasp on the future than they did when Woj made his shocking reveal. All of the internal candidates seem to be in play as well as the main ones who work elsewhere.
The bright side is that the NBA season is fast approaching and it would make all the sense in the world to have a plan in place by the time things tip off so the interminable wait may not be much longer.
More of the Latest from Around the NBA
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Someone May or May Not Replace Adrian Wojnarowski at ESPN.
