While Charles Barkley has done plenty of talking about the ongoing saga with Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT losing out on NBA media right, the other three members of the team have not been as vocal. Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith was a guest of The Matt Thomas Show on SportsTalk 790 AM in Houston and Thomas asked Smith about what could be happening after next season.
“Inside the NBA is the greatest television program in the history of sports,” Thomas said to Smith. “And people want to know what it’s going to be like in a couple of years. Do you have any sort of answer at this point, or at least any sort of insight of the future of Inside the NBA after next season?”
Smith replied he is getting that question quite a bit as one would expect.
“It’s interesting,” Smith said. “I’ve been all over the world, man, and I hear that same question. I’ve been to Abu Dhabi. I’ve been to Europe. I’ve been to Miami. I’ve been to New York. They’re like, ‘what’s going on with the show?’ Everyone asks me that same exact question.
“For me, I feel a little bit like LeBron, his year when you got to eventually make an announcement. ‘We’re taking our talent to…’ “And if it’s with WBD, which is Turner, TNT, that would be fine. But if it’s somewhere else, I think the one thing that the four of us have, and I don’t take this lightly, this is really serious. We have the opportunity, collectively, if we move collectively, to create one of the most monumental sports movements in sports television history, where we can make sure that the producers, directors, stats, audio, visual, everyone is still employed.
“Before, we’re just really highly paid talent. We have an opportunity, possibly through all of the calls that I’m getting, to make television history again. And that, to me, is more important to make sure that the people that really helped us get to where we are, are still part of that.”
Smith and Thomas talked about some of the features of Inside the NBA such as Smith’s big board he uses to show highlights, things that have become staples of the show that will be greatly missed if it were to go away.
Smith said those things are, “so embedded in the fabric that we have to continue to be part of the NBA. And I’m excited, again, if the four of us move together, it’s going to be something. Or stay together at WBD. It will be something so monumental that no one has ever seen, ever, in sports television history.”
