Over the weekend, the focus became the status of LeBron James and Luka Doncic’s participation and the future of Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid. Amidst all this, the NBA on TNT era shut its doors after 35 years when the 2024-25 season concluded. But the latest event just erased history in more ways than one. As a fan, it sure felt like a sucker punch. Straight to the point, you won’t be able to reminisce about Shaq falling into a Christmas tree, Charles Barkley’s bracelet story, or Kenny stumbling on the stairs, as the videos got scrubbed clean of memories.

The NBA officially took over the operations of NBA TV from TNT Sports. The most visible result of this move is the purging of NBA on TNT on all social media platforms. Over the weekend, every NBA on TNT account – Instagram, X.com, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, you name it – all converted to Turner Sports US. No alarm bells yet? This shift also means all traces of the NBA content had to go from its former media partner’s atmosphere. Every clip, picture, and post from Inside the NBA was gone in a digital blink.

There are no more banners and profiles with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny “The Jet” Smith. If you were religiously following the NBA on TNT on X and can’t find it now, it’s Turner Sports US, which still posts baseball and hockey content. Moreover, the Instagram page is now blank.

This is the equivalent of a social media purge after a nasty breakup. And it was ugly – from Chuck calling out the NBA and criticizing TNT to scheduling only two broadcasts of Inside the NBA on ESPN. Just like a separation, this move rattled the internet on Monday.

Fans lash out at NBA for erasing humorous Charles Barkley content

The NBA took charge of all content on October 1, intending to start its original programming on October 13. A mix of preseason games, previews, and shows on NBA TV sacrificed decades of content on the Inside the NBA (other pages, fortunately, still have archived posts, but who knows if they’d stay up in the future).

The change was quiet enough that no one noticed until it was all gone. People on Monday blew up online, “I totally forget during the summer that we won’t have more Inside The NBA on TNT until I saw a tweet early today indicating that the old handle @NBAonTNT has been changed to @TNTSportsUS, and all the content was erased. The only constant in life is change.”

The loss hit so hard that even veteran NBA insider and wife of NBA player Andre Roberson grieved, “C’mon they did NOT have to delete everything.. so many classics GONE.” Classics indeed. Most recently, Shaquille O’Neal went viral for dashing out of the set for a bathroom break. And it’s gone among everything else.

Heartbroken fans shared screengrabs of the pages without Shaq, Chuck, Ernie, and Kenny with ‘end of era’ posts. Others lashed out at the NBA.

Hinting at the brief moment when Turner Sports filed a lawsuit against the NBA – the details of which remain unclear – fans claimed that this “act of cowardice” is the league’s way of getting back at TNT. Charles Barkley previously warned that they would lose all rights to the content and have to pay about $300,000 for highlights. Yet fans found it shocking that TNT lost the reins over its content, citing, “Why delete all that history? That’s petty & wrong!”

Some question TNT for rebranding to Turner Sports US instead of keeping the original channel, instead of, “Couldn’t just make a new account? Weird.” 

“It feels like a really strange way to signal a transition for the coverage. While change is inevitable in sports broadcasting, preserving that legacy associated with the iconic TNT brand was always special,” one fan tweeted. The fan sentiment that Chuck has repeatedly mentioned shows fans have become increasingly hostile to the NBA TV shift, as TNT’s history was forgotten in the shuffle.