Taylor Rooks and Blake Griffin, the host and a panelist on the Amazon Prime Video pregame studio show, got in a few digs at ESPN’s Shams Charania for reporting news Sunday morning that was supposed to be announced exclusively on Prime that evening: that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the NBA MVP award.
Charania, ESPN’s lead NBA reporter, posted on X at 9:50 a.m. ET that Gilgeous-Alexander won the award, citing multiple sources. ESPN published a news story at 10:15 a.m. ET, and Charania also joined SportsCenter to reveal the news.
Steve Nash, a fellow panelist on the Prime pregame show, officially announced Gilgeous-Alexander as the winner at around 7:45 p.m. ET.
“Just to be clear, the official announcement is happening here,” Rooks said before Nash’s announcement. “Dirk (Nowitzki) and Steve, you all both won MVPs, but I don’t remember Shams spoiling it back then.”
The cast chuckled before Griffin cut in with some deep NBA lore.
“What are we doing, man? It’s Sunday, Shams,” Griffin said with what appeared to be mock seriousness. “Go to brunch, nerd. Come on!”
Griffin is likely referencing how Charania, in the early days of Twitter and well before his rise as a top league newsbreaker, would frequently tweet about going to lunch.
“It’s Sunday Shams go to brunch.”
– @blakegriffin23 pic.twitter.com/y4gxBVUZam
— NBA on Prime (@NBAonPrime) May 17, 2026
While votes on the MVP and other postseason awards are submitted before the start of the playoffs, the league traditionally waits for an opportune moment to announce the winners on the pregame shows of its media partners. Several of the other awards, including Defensive Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year, were presented on NBC earlier in the playoffs. The league announced Friday that Prime’s pregame show would unveil the MVP winner before Sunday’s Game 7 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons.
Many fans noticed that the top reporter at ESPN, the longest-tenured league media partner, reported news that spoiled the exclusivity of Prime, which, like NBC, is one of the league’s new TV partners. This is the first year of the league’s new 11-year, $77 billion media rights deal with the three networks. No media outlet had reported on any of the other postseason awards before they were presented.
However, Royce Young, a former ESPN reporter who is now a member of the Thunder’s front office, said Charania — who was a senior NBA writer for The Athletic before joining ESPN in 2024 — was simply doing his job. “Don’t blame Shams,” Young wrote on X. “Blame whoever told him.”
Gilgeous-Alexander was named MVP for the second straight season, earning 83 of 100 first-place votes to beat out fellow finalists Nikola Jokić and Victor Wembanyama.
