Last week, Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics was somewhat overshadowed by a bizarrely timed postgame announcement from NBA TV analyst Charles Barkley, who took the station's postgame show to announce that he would be stepping away from television at the conclusion of next year's 2024-25 season. Of course, Barkley has long been a regular on TNT's Inside the NBA pre and postgame show, and the show's future has been shrouded in speculation as of late due to contract negotiations between the NBA and NBC, leading some to wonder what the future might hold for Barkley and his co-hosts if the NBA decided to switch television partners.

One person who wasn't thrilled and (somewhat jokingly) made his displeasure at Barkley's announcement known recently was none other than his TNT cohost and former Houston Rockets NBA champion Kenny Smith.

“The guy hasn’t called me and said, ‘Kenny, I’m retired.’ So I have no idea,” said Smith, via Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson  on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “The only thing I was mad at was in his retirement speech he didn’t thank me, you know? Thank you Kenny for all the wonderful years of helping me out making me the best at what I do… I was waiting for that! How you gonna retire and not say thanks to me, Ernie and Shaq?”

Of course, if Barkley stays true to his announcement, he will have a full year next season on Inside the NBA to extend his gratitude to his co-hosts before parting ways with the television space for good at the conclusion of the season. Regardless of whether the NBA partners with NBC or stays with Turner (which produces both TNT and NBA TV), Inside The NBA is expected to remain on the airways for the 2024-25 campaign.

A changing media landscape

In recent years, Barkley has branched out into other spaces, including becoming one of the many current and former athletes to have a podcast, which he appears on alongside Inside The NBA host Ernie Johnson.

As for Inside The NBA, some have argued that the production value of the show has gone down as the program increasingly becomes inundated with sportsbook-sponsored betting advice for its audience, a significant portion of which is comprised of young children, as well as feeling a bit stale in terms of its repetition of the same gimmicks that have been running for years without much variety.

There's also the fact that the show does not have much in the way of actual basketball analysis, a fact that the program's producers actively mock in the segment “Who He Play For?” in which Barkley proves that he doesn't know which team several relatively well known role players currently suit up for.

A switch to NBC would certainly bring back some nostalgia for fans who were watchers of the game in the 1990s and before, but still, for this generation of fans, a Barkley departure would warrant some sadness.