A few weeks ago, Inside the NBA host Kenny Smith decided to walk off the TNT set as a show of unity to the teams who decided to boycott their games in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting back in late August. As it turns out, co-host Charles Barkley was not at all happy with Smith's actions.
First, here's a look at Smith's walk off from the Inside The NBA TNT set:
In a recent appearance on The Ringer's “Winging it with Vince Carter” NBA centric program, Charles Barkley opened up about why he felt the way he did at that point in time:
“I was pissed at Kenny,” said the NBA legend, via Josh Paredes of Space City Scoop. “Because I didn’t think he should’ve walked off. He should’ve told us in advance. Because I had just said that it was bogus what the Milwaukee Bucks just did to the Orlando Magic. They didn’t tell them. And then like 30 seconds later, he did the exact same thing.
“I had no problem with him walking off. He should’ve told us so we could’ve prepared. The show was like, ‘Uh-oh.'”
In a way, Charles Barkley felt that Kenny Smith threw him and the rest of the NBA hosts under the bus with his decision to walk off the set without telling him. As Barkley described above, this was exactly what the Milwaukee Bucks did when they were the first team who announced their decision to boycott the games during that day. All Barkley wanted was a heads up.
It seems that that's all water under the bridge now, and the pair has likely been able to hash things out since then.