After flirting with LIV Golf, Inside the NBA‘s Charles Barkley reaffirmed his commitment to the show and TNT, but a colleague would have supported him if he left.
Shaquille O’Neal told USA Today, during an interview about his upcoming show Secret Celebrity Renovation on CBS, that he would have been in Barkley’s corner had he decided to join the LIV Golf broadcast crew.
“I would’ve supported him every which way,” O’Neal said. “Charles is one of those legends, like Bill Russell, who didn’t make a lot of money playing. So if a chance comes up like this at this age that’s legal – controversial but legal – you’ve got to look at it. If he had accepted it, I wouldn’t be mad. And if Charles had left? You’d still have me.”
While Inside the NBA would still have O’Neal, it was Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith that took the show to new heights for a decade before O’Neal joined the show after his playing career ended in 2011.
