The following is an excerpt from “Barkley: A Biography,” a book by Bella, a Washington Post writer, that was published this month by Hanover Square Press.
Shaquille O’Neal is best known for missing free throws.
Ernie Johnson, in his bow tie and Jordans, is best known as the assistant coach of the quidditch team at Hogwarts, fresh off a tremendous season.
Charles Barkley is best known for missing court dates.
And Kenny Smith is best known, well, for knowing Charles.
“Kenny Smith,” Ross bellowed throughout Chicago’s House of Blues. “Sounds like a name Charles Barkley gives to the cops — ‘Yeah, I’m Kenny Smith.’ ”
Almost two decades into an experiment that was only meant to last two years, “Inside the NBA” was the undisputed best show in all of sports media. All the while, Charles, now a two-time Hall of Famer after being inducted as part of the 1992 Dream Team, was a cultural phenomenon. He was being paid more than he ever had as a player and still working less, even with his additional role with March Madness as part of a landmark partnership with CBS.
Dan Patrick, the longtime radio and TV sportscaster, said the show has ascended into the rarefied air of sports shows that have stood the test of time — institutions such as “SportsCenter” of the 1990s, “Pardon the Interruption” and “College GameDay.”
“ ‘Inside’ is something we definitely hadn’t seen before,” Patrick said.
So, how did the best show in sports get better? Months before he was set to retire, Shaquille O’Neal had an idea: get rid of Charles or Kenny and make way for the Big Analytical.
“Matter of fact, in about 300 days, the other guy going to be in trouble — I’m just putting it out there now,” O’Neal said in early 2011, not specifying whose job he jokingly planned to take. “One of ’em gonna have to get out that seat. Big man’s coming.”
The big man in question was, of course, Shaq. Turner President David Levy met with him in 2011 to discuss joining the show. But questions remained. To add O’Neal, who commanded a spotlight all his own, could also disrupt an award-winning show — one that would allow its personalities to blame a zebra’s escape from the circus onto the interstate as an excuse for why they were late.
The presentation Levy had in store for O’Neal was unorthodox. “Shaq, there are companies that want you and there are companies that need you,” Levy told the big fella. “We want you, but we don’t need you.”
O’Neal smiled and was intrigued. He already had a sense of how difficult it was going to be to compete with Charles. ESPN’s basketball coverage had been wildly inconsistent, in large part because it didn’t have the stability or verve of “Inside.”
“They’ve always had their nose pressed up against the window of what Turner does in terms of that NBA show,” said James Andrew Miller, co-author of “Those Guys Have All The Fun,” a book about ESPN’s early days and rise to prominence. Shaq might have become ESPN’s version of Charles, but being a Chuck clone was never something that appealed to him.
“Everyone who wasn’t TNT was saying, ‘We need another Charles, we need another Charles,’ ” O’Neal said. “And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to be another Charles.’ ”
Charles was immediately onboard with trying to get Shaq. Levy had this in the back of his mind as he was telling O’Neal how he already had an Emmy-winning show, almost playing hard to get.
“To put you into this mix, there’s more risk on me, David Levy, and Turner than there is for you,” the network president said to Shaq.
The show celebrated his multiyear deal with Turner in July 2011 with an over-the-top vignette filled with cheerleaders, fireworks, pyrotechnics and confetti as O’Neal walked onto the set. Catching a shirt shot out of a cannon, Chuck unfurled a garment that had him and the rest of the “Inside” crew dressed in togas and kneeling to “The Big Aristotle,” feeding him grapes and fanning him on his throne.
But to assume his throne, O’Neal had to be heard. O’Neal had purposely mumbled throughout his career as a player, his way of shutting out the media. The problem was that had now transferred over to his career in the media.
“We added Shaq, and it was: ‘He’s gonna ruin everything. He mumbles, and he doesn’t speak out, and he’s not gonna be heard,’ ” executive producer Tim Kiely said in the 2021 docuseries “The Inside Story.”
Seeing his new analyst mumble on-air, Kiely urged O’Neal to shout to cut through Charles. To get his point across, the producer had Ernie, Kenny and Charles copy Shaq’s mumbling delivery so he could hear how bad it sounded. O’Neal was also not doing his homework. Smith recalled one show where O’Neal spoke about how Tyson Chandler was going to have an impact that night — not knowing that the center was injured and wasn’t playing. As punishment, the trio joked how Bill Russell, then in his 70s, was going to have a great game.
The show felt off, and Kiely summoned just Charles and Kenny for a rare meeting. Smith said the producer confronted them about why they were making fun of Shaq and not allowing the show to be great with him. Charles was livid but remained quiet. Smith, on the other hand, countered: When does someone come on our show and we don’t make fun of them?
Kiely agreed: Do whatever you want to him.
“They would pull me aside and tell me: ‘If you want to do what you’re doing now, go to ESPN. We want you to be Shaq,’ ” O’Neal recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, you want me to be Shaq?’ Once I started loosening up, then we started cooking together.”
Soon the disjointed flow of the show smoothed out and O’Neal was louder and more prepared. Kevin Harlan, TNT’s play-by-play man, was most impressed by how Shaq wanted to fit in and be a role player of sorts — listening and processing before “coming at you like a locomotive.” Shaq leaned more into physical comedy, tripping over himself racing Kenny to the jumbo screen.
“Charles is the catalyst for all we do. He’s the big clown, and I’m the second clown,” O’Neal said. “I’m the comedy clown.”
Once the quartet found its rhythm, it was clear that they were better with Shaq in the mix. As predicted by Levy and Lenny Daniels, the chief operating officer for Turner Sports at the time, the bombast of Charles and Shaq’s repartee elevated the show.
To say it was an adjustment for CBS’s Clark Kellogg to work with Charles and Kenny during the NCAA tournament was an understatement. Kellogg leaned toward a more serious, straight-man persona. He deeply studied the schools in prep for the tournament. Charles did, well, less of that. Harlan said Kellogg was a walking conscience compared with Charles, the walking circus. While Kellogg credited Chuck for loosening him up, he also saw what kind of person he was when his email was hacked and sent out an “I’m stuck in a foreign country, please transfer money” scam message to all of his contacts. Most people knew it was not legit, but Kellogg got a call from Charles to make sure he was okay and ask if he needed any money.
“It floored me,” Kellogg recalled. “I’m a hundred percent sure he was dead serious because he doesn’t call me much.”
When it came to the on-air chemistry between Charles and Shaq, the pair needed to strike a balance. Sometimes, Shaq would be the combative foil who pushed back against Charles and reminded him of his career shortcomings in every debate. Sometimes, he would play the comedic hype man. But since the beginning, their on-air arguments have followed a familiar pattern, reminiscent of an old married couple. Their verbal spats regularly generate headlines in both the blogosphere and establishment media such as The Washington Post, the Guardian and USA Today.
Charles, the man without any social media who says anyone who tweets probably lives out of their mother’s basement, regularly trends on Twitter, in part because of his devolved debates with Shaq.
Charcey Glenn, Charles’s mother, and Lucille O’Neal didn’t need social media to hear about the shots their boys took at each other. They were usually watching — with one calling the other to talk about whatever it was they had gotten into the night before.
“We would talk to each other each day on the phone, and Charcey would say, ‘There they go arguing again.’ I would just bust up laughing,” Lucille remembered. “I started calling Shaquille and said, ‘Didn’t we tell y’all to play nice?’ ”
Howard Beck, the longtime basketball scribe now at Sports Illustrated, joyfully likened their banter to old men waving their fists at the clouds. They were selling the raw talk of close friends, which makes for compelling television. Their heated disagreements can take the show to a place others can’t.
“I always make the distinction, and Charles will never engage in this, that the difference between him and Shaq is that Charles knows how to make fun of himself and Shaq doesn’t,” ESPN’s Howard Bryant said. “Shaq isn’t kidding when he’s attacking you. They do admire each other and are friends, but you can also tell that Shaq has to win, and that’s not the case for Charles.”
For Shaq’s part, he sees it as a matter of perspective.
“When it comes to certain settings, I want to know how you know something, period. If you don’t know, then you shouldn’t be speaking on it so adamantly,” O’Neal said. “You can give your opinion, but how do you know? I know because I’ve been to the Finals six times. Kenny knows because he’s been there twice and won twice. It’s just like a question thing. I want to know. I’m interested when both those guys speak, but with Charles, I’m like, ‘How do you know?’
“But here’s the thing: He showed us kids how to play mean, throw elbows and play with reckless abandonment. My daddy used to tell me all the time, ‘You got to rebound like Barkley and get some elbows up.’ So he’s definitely meant a lot to me.”
