Someone may or may not replace Adrian Wojnarowski at ESPN

Adrian Wojanarowski dropped one final shocking bombshell on Sept. 18 when he announced he was retiring from the news business and taking his talents to St. Bonaventure to serve as general manager of the Bonnies basketball program. The conversation quickly turned to ESPN’s plans for a post-Woj world and who the company would approach to fill the void left by one of the best news breakers in all of sports. For almost two weeks we have been bombarded with reports about various possibilities without any further clarity.

Let’s go through these quickly.

Just hours after the announcement, Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy named Shams Charania and Chris Haynes, two of Woj’s main competitors in other sports venues, as possible candidates.

My sources tell me that ESPN will likely talk to Shams Charania, Wojanrowski’s former Yahoo Sports protégé former ESPNer Chris Haynes. According to the New York Post, both are pending free agents. The 30-year-old Charania’s contracts with The Athletic, Stadium and FanDuel are all finalized. The same goes for 42-year-old Haynes, who has plenty of experience in front of the camera at TNT.

A few days later, Puck’s John Ourand suggested that there might not be a 1-1 replacement for Wojanarowski. Tim Bontemps, Tim MacMahon, Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst are all currently under ESPN contract and could work together to fill any gaps. We’ve learned that Zach Lowe will not be part of the plans as he was let go by the company last week.

Then Andrew Marchand of The Athletic wrote a few days ago that Jeff Passan, ESPN’s top baseball reporter, may be changing tact and turning his attention to basketball to become Woj 2.0. In the same article, Charania is also mentioned as the top candidate.

As if all that wasn’t enough, McCarthy jumped into the fray again on Monday, writing that Adam Schefter might be tapped to cover NFL and NBA news for ESPN to become the ultimate insider.

So there are many options. Not all possibilities have been explored yet either, as ESPN may decide to do something completely different. The average consumer could be forgiven for feeling like they have no better grasp of the future than they did when Woj made his shocking revelation. All internal candidates appear to be in play, as well as key ones who work elsewhere.

The good thing is that the NBA season is quickly approaching and it would make perfect sense to have a plan in place until the end so that the endless wait doesn’t last much longer.