Andre Iguodala announced on Friday that he is returning to the Golden State Warriors. He did so by exclusively informing Jonathan Abrams of the New York Times, and the NBA veteran did not appreciate it when another reporter tried to pass off the news as his own.
Abrams tweeted a link to his story about Iguodala’s one-year deal with the Warriors at exactly 11 a.m. EST on Friday. About 25 minutes later, Shams Charania of The Athletic claimed he was told by a source that Iguodala has signed with Golden State. Iguodala immediately called out Charania.
@Jpdabrams and the @nytimes was the source pro
— andre (@andre) August 6, 2021
Minutes after sending his initial tweet, Charania followed up by noting that Iguodala informed Abrams of his plans.
Iguodala told @Jpdabrams about his plans to return to the Bay.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 6, 2021
It’s possible — even if not likely — that Charania was told of Iguodala’s plans by a source and didn’t realize Iguodala had already confirmed them to Abrams. However, the longtime NBA reporter has not exactly earned the benefit of the doubt.
Marc Stein, who also works for the New York Times, called out Charania two years ago for supposedly claiming the work of other reporters as his own. That feeling is apparently shared among others in the NBA media industry.
Charania, who works for The Athletic and has more than 1.3 million followers, has long had a tendency to omit certain pieces of information from his tweets. Many people think he does so intentionally. For example, most reporters will say “the team announced” when passing along official news about an injury or transaction. Charania often leaves that part out, which leads some to believe he is trying to claim credit for information that is readily available to anyone.
Iguodala clearly felt Charania broke an unwritten rule.
