Kenny “The Jet” Smith is one of the most prominent NBA analysts on TV, and his Sports Emmy Award-winning Inside the NBA consistently receives rave reviews from sports fans at large.
As the NBA Playoffs continue, Smith is fully immersed in all of the action and eagerly anticipating the start of the conference finals. He appeared on the Rich Eisen Show on Tuesday to discuss what it is like for him and his colleagues to watch the games when they are not on the air for TNT.
“We have a green room in the back that becomes the kids’ clubhouse and everything and anything is talked about as the games are going on,” Smith said. “It’s multiple TVs.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Sports broadcasts national games for the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, meaning the green room can become crowded every once in a while – especially when games from multiple leagues are all going on at once.
The green room has contained analysts including Charles Barkley, Pedro Martínez and Wayne Gretzky as they are in-between broadcast segments, giving the colleagues a chance to converse. Smith described those scenes as being a “madhouse” however, it is organized chaos thanks to assigned seating.
“There’s a seat that I’ve sat in for 21 years,” Smith said. “Charles has sat in his for 18, and Shaq has sat in his for 12 that… everyone knows never to sit in. We always play around when someone new comes in. If one of us is missing, [we’ll say], ‘Oh yeah, you can sit there. You can sit there.’ Then the other person has to make that person move.”
Smith said that if someone is sitting in Barkley’s seat – which is located adjacent to Smith’s – he will look to Smith to ask the intruder to move. Barkley does not vocalize what he is feeling, as he is cognizant Smith knows what is amiss, and blames it on him for allowing that person to sit there in the first place.
“I understand that, Kenny, because if you know that is Charles’s seat and Charles isn’t there, you can save him the trouble of being the A-hole,” Eisen said. “You’re making him the A-hole.”
“But isn’t that the purpose of life?,” Smith questioned. “That is my purpose in life.”
“Is it to make Charles the A-hole?,” Eisen replied. “I get it; very good…That’s why your show’s so good for as long as it’s been Kenny.”
