Video: Shams Recalls Hands 'Shaking' While Reporting Luka Trade Between Lakers-Mavs

ESPN's Shams Charania said his first reaction to learning the Dallas Mavericks were trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers was to ask: "Is this f--king real?"

"My hands were shaking," Charania told Kenny Beecham and Cam Johnson on Thursday's episode of The Young Man and The Three. "You had to make sure every detail was right. You had to make sure there was no typo. I just remember, my hands were trembling.

"I didn't have a graphic to go with it, because it was so sudden. ... It's not like you make a Luka Dončić graphic beforehand."

Charania broke the news of the Dončić-Anthony Davis trade at 12:12 a.m. ET on Feb. 2. The post has since gained more than 300,000 likes on X.

The news reportedly shocked NBA executives as well as players, including those involved in the trade.

The night of Feb. 1, Charania said he first heard rumors of "something going on with the Lakers and Mavericks" around 11 p.m.

Charania went on to detail how he learned just how big that move was going to be:

"You hear about one player. Obviously, wasn't Luka or AD. You hear about this player getting traded here. OK, interesting.

"I'm digging more and more. By person two, three, I hear: Hood-Schifino is going to Utah, it's a three-team trade. Markieff Morris is going to the Lakers too, and Maxi Kleber. And I'm picking all these pieces apart, and I'm like, 'What's the trade? What is going on here?'

"By the time I got to the fourth or fifth person, I got all the details of the trade. I made one more call. I didn't even say on that call—I basically was like, 'Is this f--king real?' And the person was like, 'Yeah, it's real.'"

Charania said he ultimately posted about the trade "five to seven minutes" after learning the details.

"After that, my phone was a mess," Charania said. "I had up to 300 text messages. ... Everybody with the same message: 'Did you get hacked? Did you get hacked? Check your phone, you got hacked.'"

Charania responded to that doubt with a follow-up post that started with: "Yes, this is real."

Charania told Beecham and Johnson that he wasn't able to fully process the ramifications of the trade until the next day.

"I look back at my first ESPN hit that I did at almost midnight my time, and I said, 'This is one of the biggest trades in recent history in the NBA,'" Charania said. "And I was looking at the reaction, and I'm like, this is the biggest trade in recent history. I don't know why I said 'one of.' I think I was still trying to process in the moment."

The Dončić-Davis trade altered the course of both franchises and marked the first midseason swap of reigning All-NBA players, per Elias Sports Bureau. It could ultimately go down as the most shocking trade in NBA history.