Shaquille O’Neal doesn’t believe Charles Barkley about retiring from ‘Inside the NBA’
Shaquille O’Neal putting Charles Barkley in a chokehold on Inside The NBA. (NBA on TNT on Twitter.)
Charles Barkley is insisting that this will be his final season on Inside the NBA. Last month, he claimed it would be Ernie Johnson’s last season on the beloved NBA studio show, adding that he’d be leaving as well, telling Bill Simmons, “Me and Ernie are a package deal.” Barkley then doubled down on his looming retirement in an interview with Davis Baker of WSFA 12 News.
“It’s been a great journey. I thank everybody for their support all these years, but I’ll be 64 years old. Ernie [Johnson] asked me to stay a couple more years. Last year was one, this year is two. But I feel really good. This is going to be more like a celebration, because, man, I’ve had the greatest life a person can have,” Barkley said.
However, just because the Chuckster keeps saying it doesn’t mean everyone believes him. Shaquille O’Neal, a studio analyst alongside Barkley on Inside the NBA, isn’t buying his retirement talk.
“I hope he gets fired on the first day,” O’Neal joked after being asked on Front Office Sports Tonight if he believed Barkley.
“I don’t believe it.”
Shaquille O’Neal addresses Charles Barkley’s claims that he’s retiring and that this will be his final season on Inside the NBA.
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— Front Office Sports Tonight (@FOSTonight) October 7, 2026
O’Neal quickly clarified that he was joking before saying that he wasn’t buying Barkley’s retirement claim, adding that Chuck is a master marketer.
“No, Charles is like the big brother I never had,” O’Neal said. “He’s great. You know, Charles, Charles is, is, is, is, is really good at marketing… Once somebody taught Charles how to go viral, it was over. So, uh, do I believe it? No, I don’t believe it. But if it happens, it was a great run. Have fun. But I don’t believe that.”
O’Neal joins The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis as a non-believer, and it’s hard to blame them, considering Barkley has already admitted that there’s a path to staying on Inside the NBA for another “year or more.” Barkley, who has gone as far as to name Jalen Rose as his preferred replacement, could also be attaching his future to Johnson’s and insisting that this year will be it for him as a negotiating tactic with ESPN and TNT as he looks for a pay bump, especially if he’s as shrewd as O’Neal says he is.
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Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.