As the Eastern Conference Finals concluded, Inside the NBA signed off for the final time of the 2022-23 season, officially closing the 33rd year of broadcasts led by Ernie Johnson. Kenny “The Jet” Smith joined the show on a full time basis in 1998, and Charles Barkley joined him two years later, creating a trio for the next 20 years.
They were joined by different fourth analysts over the years, including Reggie Miller, Magic Johnson and Chris Webber, but the company made a permanent hire in 2011 by adding Shaquille O’Neal. From that moment on, the four gradually blended into a family and now share a unique chemistry not often seen in television.
“Nobody tries to make themselves the show,” Ernie Johnson told Dan Le Batard on South Week Sessions. “They’ve never tried to make the show about themselves. I’m in the fortunate position getting us from point A to point B to point C with three guys who have been in every conceivable situation in a basketball game.”
Johnson undoubtedly knows his role on the show is to facilitate discussion and position the analysts in the best position possible to share their basketball knowledge gained through their playing years. He is a veteran studio host and broadcaster, contributing to TBS’s Major League Baseball coverage during the offseason, and is able to seamlessly transition between different sports over the course of the year.
“If you try to stray outside your lane and be something you aren’t, then it doesn’t work,” Johnson said. “The fact that we don’t rehearse and the fact that we just let it rip – there you go.”
The feeling is mutual between Johnson and his co-workers that they view each other as family and hold one another in extremely high regard. Le Batard acknowledged how he has heard Barkley talk about Johnson in such a venerated manner, and that he and the others give the impression that they would do anything for Johnson.
Johnson simply replied, “And I would do the same for them. We all would.”
Johnson vividly remembers when Kobe Bryant passed away and the Inside the NBA crew was doing a show from Los Angeles reflecting on his life and legacy. At one point on the broadcast, O’Neal addressed his colleagues and told them that he loves them, realizing that he does not say it enough. It was a heartwarming moment for Johnson, and one that brought their bond to light.
“I think one thing that whole moment of time taught all of us was that you don’t know how long you have,” Johnson said. “It behooves us to make sure that everything’s cool between us – not just between the four of us on the show, but between everybody in your life… If the unthinkable happens, do you want to leave that with, ‘Man I wish I had said this. I wish that silly feud; I could have stepped up and defused it.’… I think it was a pretty brutal reminder of that.”
