A strange media dustup has emerged in recent days, after ESPN's Shams Charania reported that Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won the 2025-26 NBA MVP award.

The report upstaged Prime Video's official announcement of the winner, prompting Prime Video's Blake Griffin to say on the air, "It's Sunday Shams, go to brunch you nerd."

Beyond Prime Video's understandable frustration at having its thunder stolen by the premature naming of the Thunder guard as the league's MVP, the situation has created a debate over whether Shams should have kept his sherbet-hole shut.

He absolutely should have reported it. Not because it's what reporters do, but because who cares if the NBA MVP winner was leaked before the official announcement?

This isn't like tipping picks for the first round of the NFL draft. The vast majority of the audience wants to find out the picks when the Commissioner announces them. No one is sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the name of the NBA MVP to be revealed.

Also, from a reporting standpoint, it's far more impressive to learn the name of a league MVP before it's announced. The names of the next two or three NFL first-round picks are known by many people. Every team knows. Multiple people with each team know. The identity of the NBA MVP is presumably far more closely guarded.

Whether the NBA will be happy about the move is a different issue. The NFL has told its broadcast partners to instruct their reporters and on-air analysts to not tip draft picks. (Not everyone complies. We do, but only because that's what we believe the audience wants.)

Reporting on the winners of awards is a different issue entirely. That's fair game. Regardless of whether the NBA or the NFL like it.

Which raises an interesting question for February 2027. Will the usual "insiders" try to find out who the NFL MVP is before the name is announced? Will other reporters who aren't beholden to the broader football apparatus pursue the information?

It may be impossible to get. And it's possible that Charania wasn't even trying to get it. Information like this is routinely given to a hand-picked reporter. It's possible that Charania's scoop originated with someone who had a specific motivation to get the word out before the award was officially announced.

Regardless, it's fair game. Shams was doing his job. And no one was counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds for the drum roll preceding the formal announcement of the NBA's next MVP.