“I didn’t make it all the way through the clip, I gotta be honest with you. My resting heart rate is probably 64. I watched the clip, it was 64. Literally don’t care. I have other thoughts, but don’t care.” Before the Lakers hosted the Atlanta Hawks, JJ Redick gave his candid reply to Charles Barkley’s recent criticism. During the recent double header of TNT, Chuck went on a long rant and called out the new Lakers’ coach and his opinion on viewership decline. And it seems even Byron Scott is not a fan of Redick’s comment as he supported the TNT analyst.

“You know with this team so far, uh ’cause they are competing, you know much harder than they have in the last couple of years or so.” During the conversation with another Lakers legend Michael Cooper, Scott first praised the turnover of performance from the Lakers coach. However, disregarded his opinion of blaming the media or Inside the NBA featuring Charles Barkley and Co. for viewership decline.

“But um when you talk about the viewership is down like 48% or something like that which is crazy! And you’re trying to blame it on TNT or the media and all this stuff. I think that’s crazy.”

The 3x NBA Champion even chimed in with the play style of the current games. “When you got one guy dribbling for 20 seconds and three guys in the parking lot and one guy standing under the basket, that’s not that’s not basketball.”

Later, he even cited the issue of his former team under JJ Redick. “I think you know JJ’s a little off base as far as that’s concerned because he’s in it and he’s part of that because that’s the way the Lakers play as well. They don’t have a ton of movement.”

This comes after Charles Barkley, during the recent Inside show, went on a rant about the Lakers coach. “He said something about we’re the reason people ain’t watching this crappy product we got. Yeah, us, like we’re out there jacking up a hundred threes. JJ, if you come for the king, you better not miss because I can get you, brother.” So, let’s revisit the 40-year-old’s statement, which started this feud. 

The origin of the Charles Barkley-JJ Redick feud

Currently, the Purple and Gold franchise is fourth in the Western Conference with a 20-14 record. But their form has been mixed. They started the season with elite offensive plays but gave away a lot of points to the opposition. Being the former broadcaster, the Head Coach was asked about NBA ratings discourse last month.

Even though he stated that his answer would be “brief,” his explanation was 4 minutes long. One of his points included how the media tries to tear down the players which harms the product.

“And I’ve told Adam [Silver] this and I’ll say this again: I don’t think we as, and by we I was part of it, we as the sort of national partners have done a good job of storytelling, of celebrating the game. If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product s–ks, well, I’m not going to watch the product. And that’s really what has happened over the last 10 to 15 years.” This is the point that Charles Barkley did not like.

More often than not, Inside the NBA featuring Chuck, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson has received such messages about being over-critical of the players. But in favor of JJ Redick, he also highlighted other issues, such as more streaming services and less cable, leading to a loss in viewership. But what do you think? Is Charles Barkley’s strong opinions the reason for declining viewership?