Charles Barkley and his Inside the NBA co-hosts will, in fact, be running their show on ESPN starting next season. That does not, however, mean that they won't appear on TNT's airwaves, despite the network licensing the beloved postgame show to its rival after losing NBA rights.

Barkley, who has been reticent to accept the show's future leading up to the the end of the conference finals, and with them, TNT's rights package, peeled back the curtain a bit on what lies ahead during Monday's Dan Patrick Show, though he still admits he doesn't know exactly what the arrangement will look like in practice.

“TNT is trying to do something stupid behind the scenes,” Barkley told Patrick. “We taped a pilot about a month ago and it was the stupidest s--- I’ve ever seen in my life. 'Cause we’re not gonna be on ESPN as much as people think … we’re only probably gonna be working for ESPN like half the time to one-third of the time. So I think TNT wants to do something, and we taped a pilot about a month ago and it was the stupidest s--- ever.”

Patrick asked for a quick clarification: Both ESPN and TNT will air versions of Inside the NBA this coming year? Barkley said that is the plan, but of course there's one major issue for the TNT edition: The network no longer has rights to NBA highlights.

“But they’re trying to do something stupid at TNT. Which is a stupid idea for a couple reasons. Number one, we won’t have basketball highlights. But also, we’re probably gonna be going up against an NBA game. And anybody who likes basketball, they ain't gonna say, ‘Hey, you know what? Let me turn off a NBA game on Amazon, ESPN or NBC to go watch these four dudes sit around and talk about nothing.’ So it's complicated. We taped a pilot doing stupid stuff and it was just stupid stuff. I wouldn’t want to go out like that.”

Barkley said that TNT admitted that the pilot was stupid going in, which he gave them credit for. Clearly the network wants to get its money's worth from continuing to employ Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal, beyond whatever ESPN is paying for the license of what will be known as Inside the NBA on ESPN/ABC. Still, it is hard to see that group agreeing to do a terrible show devoid of highlights, as loyal as they've been to Turner over the years.

We've known for months what the plan is for Inside the NBA for the 2025–26 season, and even so, the drama appears far from over.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Charles Barkley Shares Details on ‘Stupid’ Idea TNT Has for ‘Inside the NBA’.

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