Shams Charania fired back at now-former Bucks coach Doc Rivers while appearing on “The Pat McAfee Show on Monday, dropping the gauntlet down that he just documents “the news and the truth can hurt sometimes.”
The NBA insider was discussing where the Bucks will go after a disastrous season concluded on Sunday with a loss to the 76ers, when Charania pushed back at those who have questioned his reporting.
“The reality of everything in Milwaukee is this, if they spent as much time dealing with their own internal dynamics and problems as they do responding to accurate reports, they wouldn’t be in the mess that they’re in right now,” he said.
“I got one more for you. I’ve been watching documentaries from time to time, I saw one on Fyre Festival, and so the part we’re at right now is everyone wants to run and you’re doing the cover-up,” Charania added. “Again, it’s totally fine, I’m just here to document and cover it the right way. I feel like we’ve done an unbelievable job tracking everything. At the end of the day, the last month and a half we’ve seen it.”
Charania reported earlier this month on the internal issues going on during the season in Milwaukee, which included the persistent speculation around star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
It also detailed a March 1 team meeting where Rivers challenged his players and told them to look up his résumé.
Rivers had taken shots at Charania during an appearance on “Run It Back” on FanDuel Sports Network – a show Charania had been a part of in the past – on Friday.
“Shams wrote an article that was so inaccurate that I don’t have enough time to go into it,” River said. “He talked about a locker room thing and I was laughing like, ‘yeah, we had a tough locker room day.’ We lost to the Chicago Bulls with a 20-point lead. I showed clips the next day of guys who were screwing up. That’s what happens in a locker room. The first thing I thought was, ‘Where’s Woj? I miss [Adrian Wojnarowski] so much.’”
Rivers also questioned Charania’s sourcing in the story and appeared to allege that the insider had written the story as payback for a joke the coach made about him during NBA All-Star Weekend. Rivers said Antetokounmpo should have traded him from his celebrity team, a quip the team’s social media department ran with, much to Charania’s reported dismay.
“I just report the news,” Charania said on Monday. “I just document the news and the truth can hurt sometimes 100 percent. I stand by my reporting to the 10th degree, like 100 percent.”
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