The future of “Inside the NBA” was already a hot topic when Charles Barkley entered an elevator late Friday night after Game 3 of the Western Conference finals in Minneapolis. Barkley’s openness as an analyst is one of the main reasons the studio show has become so influential and popular among basketball fans and across the league.
But these are tense times for the show and those who work on it. Warner Bros. Discovery has not secured the rights to continue broadcasting NBA games on TNT beyond next season. Without this, the long-term future of “Inside the NBA” is uncertain. When Barkley, who had already fended off several attempts by security and public relations officials to stop him from being interviewed, led me into an elevator full of colleagues, not everyone was happy.
Kenny Smith, Barkley’s on-screen counterpart, expressed his irritation. But Barkley, as he has done throughout his decades in the public eye, made it clear that he would not be muzzled.
“Hey, man, I can talk to whoever I want,” Barkley told Smith, using an expletive. Others in the elevator shifted uncomfortably.
“You should do that out there,” Smith said, suggesting the interview be done outside the elevator.
Barkley turned to me, “Don’t worry about him.”
“She should clear it through Turner,” Smith said. “She should do it right.”
Why was it so important for him to talk, I asked Barkley, even when others around him didn’t want to? He nodded to the impact the uncertainty is having on the staff working on the show. And not just the well-known on-air personalities: Barkley, Smith, Shaquille O’Neal and host Ernie Johnson.
“It’s about people’s lives,” Barkley said. “Not my life. Not Ernie’s life. Not Kenny’s life. Not Shaq’s life. But all the people who work here. We probably have 100 people working on the show. So they are real people. I watched their children be born, graduate from high school and graduate school.”
“Inside the NBA” began when Turner Sports acquired the rights to broadcast NBA games in 1989. Johnson became host in 1990 and Smith joined him in 1998. Barkley’s arrival and his unfiltered opinions in 2000 firmly established the show as appointment television for basketball fans and a staple of league culture. O’Neal joined the show in 2011, and the group’s irreverent and incisive basketball analysis, unfettered by concerns about access or ego, has endeared them to viewers and critics. Now this mainstay of NBA coverage could be in jeopardy — at least in its current format.
Warner Bros. Discovery failed to reach an agreement with the NBA during the exclusive negotiating window, leading to reports that the company could lose the rights. David Zaslav, Warner’s chief executive, said the company has the right to match any offer. Asked by TMZ on Thursday about the possibility of losing the show, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said: “We’re all still talking. Who knows how it will turn out?”
The nervousness surrounding the negotiations stands in sharp contrast to the relaxed style that has made “Inside the NBA” so popular.
Early in his tenure, Barkley clearly stated that he would kiss Smith’s butt if the Houston Rockets’ Yao Ming, then a relatively unproven 7-foot-6 center from China, scored 19 points in a given game. To make good on the bet, Smith brought out a donkey on another show for Barkley to kiss.
In 2018, Rockets players, including former Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul, attempted to approach the Clippers’ locker room after a tense game. Sideline reporter Ros Gold-Onwude said there was a police presence at the arena to ensure the incident did not escalate. At the end of their report, O’Neal and Barkley laughed uncontrollably while Smith and Johnson tried to calm them down.
As he caught his breath, O’Neal imitated an imaginary 911 call: “Hello, police? Chris Paul is trying to beat me up.”
Barkley countered with a reference to a Clippers player: “Hey, that’s Blake Griffin. Chris Paul tries to get into the locker room! Come down here and save me!”
The people working behind the scenes create cheeky visuals that often punctuate the on-air banter. In other cases, writers and producers’ ideas became indelible parts of the show. The fair is known in the league as a place where employees feel surrounded by a family atmosphere.
“Inside the NBA” also deals with serious topics. In 2014, for example, the show opened with a candid discussion of the situation after a white police officer who killed a black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, was not charged.
And his influence among players is undisputed. Dereck Lively, a rookie with the Dallas Mavericks, appeared in a segment this month because an Oklahoma City Thunder player chased him all over the court as if they were playing a game of tag. Lively’s friends excitedly sent him the video.
“There are not many people who can be there in moments like this,” he said.
A few days later, Lively’s teammate Daniel Gafford was a guest on the show’s in-arena set after the game. During the game he had shouted and beat his chest. On the “Inside the NBA” set, he smiled coyly, even when Barkley called him by the wrong name.
“I’m excited to be here with all of you,” Gafford said. “It’s a great honor.”
Barkley told Gafford that there were times in his illustrious NBA career when he cried and wondered if he was really any good at basketball. He asked Gafford if he had ever wondered that about himself. Gafford said he did.
If the show goes away, Lively said, the league will lose “one of the lighthearted places, but also one of the places where people aren’t afraid to say what they want to say.”
“All four of these guys, everyone has a lot of respect for these four guys,” Lively continued. “Whenever they talk, people listen.”
He added: “Losing that connection will hurt the league.”
When the Timberwolves defeated the Denver Nuggets and made it to the conference finals, Barkley told Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards that he hadn’t been to Minnesota in decades. Edwards responded, “Get your ass,” creating a civic rallying cry for everyone from the local symphony to the governor of Minnesota.
“Inside the NBA” is typically filmed in a studio in Atlanta, but the show took place on location at the Target Center for the Western Conference Finals between the Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks.
As fans streamed into the arena in Minneapolis on Friday night, many found the set and waited for the stars to arrive. They held jerseys and signs, just like they would for an NBA team.
Karen Steele, 51, held up a hand-drawn sign that read, “We love Charles.” Her sister had bet $50 that she couldn’t get a photo with Barkley, so she was there to try.
“He’s real,” Steele said. When Edwards made his comment, “some people may not have reacted well,” she added. “He responded great. Our city loves him. He was an incredible basketball player. He’s fun to watch.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Barkley has been the most vocal about the future of the show.
This month, Barkley said he had a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave the club if TNT lost the NBA
In a recent appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” Barkley criticized the management of Warner Bros. Discovery. He never mentioned Zaslav, the CEO, by name, but referred to the company’s executives as “clowns.”
“When we merged, the first thing our boss said was, ‘We don’t need the NBA,'” Barkley said. “Well, he doesn’t need it. But the rest of the people, me, Kenny, Shaq and Ernie and the people that work there, we need it.”
The other “Inside the NBA” stars were quieter.
Before Friday’s pregame show, O’Neal sat courtside and chatted with passersby. When asked for an interview, he grinned and said, “Since Chuck’s outburst, we haven’t been allowed to talk.” He might have been joking, although a TNT PR official later said that the cast had not been asked not to to speak.
Johnson asked me for an interview and referred me to the PR team. TNT declined to arrange interviews with its talent for this article. After the game, Johnson interrupted the interview with Barkley as he exited the elevator to reprimand me for approaching him without company permission.
Because TNT does not broadcast the NBA Finals, the show’s season ends after the Western Conference Finals. Game 4 takes place on Tuesday night with Dallas leading 3-0 in the best-of-seven series. “Inside the NBA” will return next season, but whether that will be the last remains to be seen.
“I love my job,” Barkley said. “We have been working with these people for 24 years and have a lot of fun together. And we hope it continues like this. We hope, but we have no control over it.”
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2024-05-29 14:09:30
www.nytimes.com
