NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski calls it a career

Peter Klein

NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski gave us one last Woj Bomb announcing his retirement. Peter Klein broke down what this means for the NBA media industry

Transcript

00:00As Toxic brought up in the chat, it is crazy that Adrian Wojnarowski, Woj, has announced

00:16his retirement.

00:17The last Woj bomb is that he is leaving the broadcasting and journalism world after like

00:2330 bajillion years in covering everything.

00:26He is off to be a general manager with Bonaventure's men's basketball team, and honestly, when

00:32I saw that he was going to be a general manager for a college basketball team, a number of

00:39things went through my mind.

00:41One, college basketball teams have general managers now?

00:44Two, I was like, oh, that's a little weird that he's going to do both, but I guess he

00:48can.

00:49Like, he's very good at what he does.

00:50And then you see the retirement, and it's like, ah, no, he's not going to do both.

00:54He is, in fact, just doing the one thing, so it really is the end of an era when it

01:01comes to this sort of a thing.

01:03He has been one of the gold standards for insider reporting, not just in basketball,

01:11but really in all of sports.

01:13When you look at this latest kind of era in sports journalism and broadcast journalism

01:20and the, I guess, I don't want to say added influence, because insiders have always had

01:26influence.

01:28I think we have more of them, and because of the reach of social media, we have access

01:32to them very, very quickly.

01:33And so that has been something that has been really interesting to see.

01:37And Woj was one of the first ones who you had to mute on draft day, because he was like

01:42eight picks ahead.

01:44You'd be watching in the first round, and he's already off in the 2025 draft.

01:51He's way over there.

01:53The guy was unbelievable at his job, and again, one of the gold standards in this industry.

02:00And now, I don't want to say leaves a giant hole, because there's actually a couple.

02:04He had amazing competition with Shams, who I would imagine ESPN is going to be courting

02:10rather aggressively.

02:12For ESPN, they do have Zach Lowe, who seems relatively connected as well.

02:17I do think that, I guess, I don't want to speak for Zach Lowe.

02:20I've never met the guy.

02:21I really enjoy his podcast, by the way, once you're done listening to my podcasts, of course.

02:27One of the best basketball podcasts out there.

02:28And he strikes me as someone who likes a bit more of the basketball analysis standpoint

02:36than the insidery stuff, although he is, I think, relatively connected, and does quite

02:42well with the insidery stuff as well.

02:44Ramona Shelburne, she tends to break the bit more serious, newsy type stuff, but she's

02:50very connected with the Los Angeles Lakers.

02:53She was very well connected with Kobe Bryant, and so I do think that that can kind of spite

02:58her off.

02:59But a very interesting hole that is left now at ESPN, and in the basketball world in general.

03:06Shams is just ready.

03:07He is ready to go and take this one over, and I would imagine ESPN throws a relatively

03:12hefty contract at him.

03:15But yeah, this is, it's been kind of an interesting time in media.

03:19Yahoo taking another go at sports with bringing Ariel Helwani on for, and all of his buddies,

03:26for enhanced MMA coverage.

03:28They bring in KOC from the Ringer for their NBA coverage.

03:32You have Woj leaving.

03:34The Ringer is always, I think, very good at hiring.

03:37The Athletic is always so good, and I wonder if they get an NBA insider that kind of wiggles

03:42the airway into a little bit more of this space, and then Shams is Shams.

03:48So it is a very interesting time in the sports media landscape, and so, and you know, hopefully

03:56there's room for stuff like this, and stuff like Game Over that I do as well.

03:59By the way, subscribe over to the Game Over Calgary channel right now.

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