Former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski was diagnosed with prostate cancer in March, six months before his shocking retirement from the network.
The news was revealed in a Sports Illustrated profile of the 55-year-old published Thursday morning, in which he said his prognosis is good.
Wojnarowski left ESPN to become the general manager for the men’s basketball program at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure.
When Wojnarowski said in his statement announcing he was leaving ESPN that “time isn’t in endless supply,” that was a reference to his cancer, he told SI.
He underwent a biopsy after two blood tests revealed an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and received the diagnosis minutes before appearing remotely on “NBA Countdown.”
“When you hear cancer, you think about it going through your body like Pac-Man,” Wojnarowski told SI. “Prostate cancer, it generally stays confined to your prostate and is typically slow growing.”
The cancer is “pretty limited in scope,” Wojnarowski says. He’s asymptomatic, does not currently need surgery and will have the cancer monitored.
Burnout is what prompted Wojnarowski to leave his lucrative job as the top NBA news-breaker — The Athletic previously reported he was walking away from $20 million.
But the cancer did offer him some perspective as he mulled the career change.
“I didn’t want to spend one more day of my life waiting on someone’s MRI or hitting an agent at 1 a.m. about an ankle sprain,” he told SI.
Wojnarowski took notice of how many associated with ESPN did not travel to Arkansas for a memorial for Chris Mortensen, a longtime NFL insider for the network who died from throat cancer in March.
“It made me remember that the job isn’t everything,” Wojnarowski told SI. “In the end it’s just going to be your family and close friends. And it’s also, like, nobody gives a s–t. Nobody remembers [breaking stories] in the end. It’s just vapor.”
ESPN has since hired Shams Charania as its new top insider.
