Adrian Wojnarowski. Zach Lowe. Marc Stein. Lee Jenkins. What do these gentlemen all have in common? They are among the top reporters in the NBA for breaking news. Just as incoming NBA players stand on the shoulders of the greats before them, incoming NBA journalists do the same.

Similar to how Kobe Bryant replicated many of Michael Jordan‘s basketball moves, Shams Charania parallels his writing to Adrian Wojnarowski. In a profile published in Complex, Aaron Mansfield gave an insight to Charania, a recently turned 22 year old who works for Yahoo!’s The Vertical under Wojnarowski.

Charania has yet to graduate from Loyola University of Chicago, but, per Mansfield, he has already been nicknamed “wunderkind” by Yahoo!, “Doogie Howser” by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, and has received praise from his mentor describing him as “the best young basketball reporter on the planet.” Mansfield refers to him highly.

“If there were such a thing as prep-to-pro journalism prospect, Charania would be it.”

Charania's success can be seen in his Twitter followers' increase.

“His follower count has jumped from about 33,000 to 73,000 since June 20 because Shams (rhymes with “Woj bombs”) has been all over some major deals.”

“He broke Dwight Howard to the Hawks, DeMar DeRozan re-signing with the Raptors, Luol Deng to the Lakers, and Jamal Crawford re-signing with the Clippers. Consider this free agency period his coming-out party.”

How does he get the news? Who does he know? Who helped him get to where he is? Well, Mansfield reveals this about Shams Charania.

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“Charania has never worked or interned for a newspaper. He doesn’t have a fancy degree. He didn’t start with any industry connection…Charania has quietly built a network of sources over four years of full-time reporting…going to games and meeting people in person has been critical to making connections.”

Charania may not have a degree to his name yet, but he sure has one heck of a resume and a staggering list of references.

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