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Johnson reiterated a comment similar to the one that he made on Front Office Sports Tonight about hoping Inside the NBA endures without him and Charles Barkley, who has also alluded several times to the idea that this will be his last season on the show. “Sure, there could always be Inside the NBA. It would be different,” Johnson told Machado. “What I would hope is that as the years go by, it doesn’t have to be the exact same show. It can just morph into something else. … I love those guys and wish nothing but the best for the show as it continues in whatever form that takes.”
Johnson also spoke of the “seamless” transition the show made to ESPN and ABC last year after TNT lost the NBA rights, and ESPN licensed the program in exchange for a package of Big 12 football and basketball games. “That was our concern, in all honesty, when this change was gonna be made. I said, ‘Are we still gonna be able to be Inside the NBA?’ And this is total honesty: It was seamless,” Johnson said. “The folks at ESPN have been, [and] continue to be, great.” He continued, “They’ve let our show continue the way we do it. We’ve got the same producer, we’ve got the same studio crew, we’ve got the same graphics folks, we got the same announcer. It’s us continuing to do the show in Atlanta’s Studio J. It’s just, the logo is different. It’s on ESPN, or it’s on ABC. They’ve been tremendous partners to be with. I’m just glad that we could continue the show. It would’ve been very strange to just cold turkey stop doing the NBA.”
It was a day that was inevitably going to come, but it still hit Charles Barkley like a ton of bricks. “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson announced earlier Wednesday that he will be departing the show following this season, 37 years after he joined the program. Barkley, who has been an integral part of the beloved basketball show for over two decades, paid tribute to Johnson, 70, on Wednesday’s iteration. Fighting back tears, the 63-year-old Barkley, finally collecting himself, spoke to what Johnson meant to him and the show as a whole. “That was tough,” Barkley said. “We knew the day was coming. Still tough. Been here for 26, 27 years and it’s been an honor and a privilege to work with you all this time, and Kenny [Smith] and Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal], and the amazing people behind the scenes. Nothing like it to be able to dribble a stupid basketball and get rich and famous, and then come here and get paid to watch the best players in the world. … You get paid to do it. We’d watch anyway. And so many people at, you know, Turner, WBD, and now I guess we Skydance. But it’s been an amazing journey. You’ve been our leader — our unquestionable leader.
Ernie Johnson spoke openly about his cancer diagnoses. He spoke about the tribulations of his son Michael, who suffered from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and died in 2021 at 33. He, Barkley and Smith were there to console O’Neal in 2020 after the death of Kobe Bryant, who was one of nine people aboard a helicopter flying to a basketball tournament in Newbury Park, Calif. Bryant’s daughter Gianna was on the helicopter with him. Johnson spoke eloquently at the funeral of Craig Sager, the brilliant sideline reporter for Turner’s NBA coverage, who died of leukemia in 2016. Wednesday, Johnson, now 70, spoke alone. “It’s just time,” he said, putting his “brothers,” as he put it, out front for praise. The long hours preparing for every show, along with his recovery from bypass surgery 14 months ago, told him he had to take some things off his plate. He will still do the NCAA basketball tournament for TNT and CBS and said he’ll lean into his production company, 32 Bowties, which will tell, as he put it, “feel-good” stories about sports.
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Shaquille O’Neal was the first member of the cast to confide in Johnson, and he told him he grew up watching him on TV as a kid and thanked him for “the great run,” while also revealing he didn’t know something personal about Johnson. His age. “I never thought this day would come. I didn’t even know you were 70,” O’Neal said. “Makes sense now.” O’Neal left Johnson laughing during the pregame show and then started talking to him about when he found out about his retirement and expressed his gratitude for working with him for the last 14 years. “I heard the news today like everyone else and listening to what everyone’s saying about ‘What’s going to happen next?’ You know we’re not too worried about what’s going to happen next,” O’Neal said. “What’s happening now is we’re still here, and we’re gonna have a great year.”
Oh No He Didn't: Charles Barkley on Ja Morant on the Blazers: "I think this was probably the worst place for him to go because I don't think him and Dame can play together. They both need the ball and they both small. They wouldn't be able to guard anybody. You put them little dudes out there against the top guards in the NBA they're two little leprechauns"
Taylor Rooks: "The voice note that I sent Draymond Green was really thanking him because back when I worked at TNT, my first big linear moment was at All-Star Weekend when I hosted the Alt-cast with Draymond and Charles Barkley. I remember being so excited to do this because it was a moment to be able to prove that I could host, that I could show up in this big moment. What I learned after was the reason that I got to be in that seat is because when Draymond said he wanted to do an Alt-cast, he said that he wanted me to be the host. That ended up being one of the first things I ever hosted, and now my job is to host NBA on Prime. So the confidence that it gave me that you believed in me, that then it filtered down to TNT believing in me, which then filtered down to Amazon believing in me, it means so much to me."
Like many, however, Shaquille O’Neal will believe Charles Barkley is retiring when he sees it. “Once somebody taught Charles how to go viral, it was over,” O’Neal told Front Office Sports Tonight’s Bridget Condon. “So do I believe it? No, I don’t believe it. But if it happens, it was a great run, we had fun. But I don’t believe that.”
Asked by Condon whether he believes Inside the NBA could even continue to exist without Barkley on it, O’Neal made his stance clear: “No.” But as for ESPN making good on Barkley’s wish for an expanded Inside the NBA schedule, the Hall of Fame center took on a different tone. “Charles, shut your face,” O’Neal said. “ESPN, I love you guys.”
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"I'm looking forward to this last year. TV has been great to me. I will take a step back from public life. I'll always come to Auburn, though. I want to make that perfectly clear," Barkley told NBC Alabama. "I'm stepping back from public life. It's been a great run, a great journey. I thank everybody for their support after all these years. "But I'll be 64 years old, and Ernie asked me to stay for a couple more years. Last year was one; this year is two. "I feel really good. This is going to be more like a celebration. I've had the greatest life a person could have."
Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Bill Russell, Charles Barkley and … Jalen Brunson. The New York Knicks’ star guard will become only the fifth NBA player to host “Saturday Night Live” when he helps tip off Season 52 this weekend. Brunson has joined elite company since coming to New York in 2022. The second-round pick from 2018 has established himself as one of the NBA’s premier players and has accumulated an off-the-court resume that has him on billboards and screens across the world, especially after the Knicks ended a 53-year drought with their NBA title in June.
The Los Angeles Lakers are looking to get back into championship contention and have built a roster around superstar Luka Doncic that they believe gets them closer to that goal. Doncic has made it to the NBA Finals before, leading the Dallas Mavericks there in 2024, though they would fall in five games to the Boston Celtics. There are some who question this Lakers roster and whether it can compete at the highest level with the best teams in the league. But NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley believes this Lakers team is just as good as the Mavericks squad Doncic led to the Finals.