Shaquille O’Neal came with jokes at Charles Barkley’s expense on Inside The NBA. While the Inside crew was previewing Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, Shaq hilariously pointed out that Barkley had only visited restaurants and eating establishments since coming to Minneapolis, even neglecting the zoo and the famous Mall of America.
“We’ve been here two days and you’ve shouted out five food places! You didn’t go to the zoo, you didn’t go to the mall, you didn’t go to CVS! You’re talking about it’s a great city!”
.@Shaq: “We’ve been here two days and you’ve shouted out five food places! You didn’t go to the zoo, you didn’t go to the mall, you didn’t go to CVS! ”
Safe to say Chuck’s enjoying his time in Minneapolis 🤣 pic.twitter.com/wrDdASZ5gE
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) May 24, 2024
Shaq has a history of making fun of Charles Barkley on the show, and it is clearly good fun between the two friends. But it was a hilarious little jab from O’Neal ahead of the Timberwolves-Mavericks game. His joke is just the latest in the saga of Barkley in Minneapolis.
After the Timberwolves defeated the Nuggets in Game 7 of their series, Charles Barkley told Anthony Edwards that he hadn’t been to Minneapolis in almost 20 years. Edwards hilariously responded to Barkley by telling him to ‘bring his a**’ to the city ahead of the Western Conference Finals.
Barkley took Edwards up on his hilarious invitation. Ahead of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Barkley posted a video to his Instagram, where he is wearing a ‘bring ya a**’ cap, repeating Edwards’ instruction, and saying that they’re here.
So far, Barkley has been nothing but effusive in his praise of Minneapolis, despite Shaq pointing out that he has only really visited restaurants in the city. But if the Dallas Mavericks are able to win Game 2 tonight, Barkley might not get the chance to visit other places in Minneapolis, as the Timberwolves would be on the verge of getting swept.
Fans Mourning End Of Inside The NBA
It was revealed recently that the NBA is nearing an agreement for their media rights with NBC Universal, ESPN, and Amazon, worth $7 billion annually. This deal could spell the end of Inside The NBA, as Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of TNT, is not expected to match NBC’s offer.
Fans have been unhappy about the possibility of Inside The NBA coming to an end. But it isn’t just fans who are unhappy about it. Charles Barkley lambasted the higher-ups at WBD for their seeming reluctance to hold on to the NBA’s media rights, and costing several crew members their jobs.
“Morale sucks, plain and simple. I just feel so bad for the people I work with,” Barkley told Dan Patrick. “These people I work with, they’ve screwed this thing up clearly and we have zero ideas what’s gonna happen. I don’t feel good, I’m not gonna lie, especially when they came out yesterday and said, ‘We bought college football.’ I was like, ‘Well damn they could have used that money to buy the NBA!’ It’s funny because we just won the best studio show and these clowns, these fools I work with, turned us from Inglenook and Opus into Ripple and Boone’s Farm and Thunderbird.”
There are questions about what the future of Inside The NBA looks like. While Barkley, Shaq, and Kenny Smith would presumably become free to work for other media companies, Ernie Johnson has been at TNT for decades and is presumed by many to remain there for the rest of his career. Who knows what the future holds, but it won’t be the same without the Inside The NBA crew.
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