Over the weekend, while we were occupied with the preseason in Abu Dhabi, the Warriors rotation, if LeBron and Luka will play at all, and what’s going to happen with Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid, a quiet but seismic shift went down. NBA on TNT’s era closed after 35 years when the 2024-25 season ended. But the latest event just erased history in more ways than one. And it’s been a punch in the gut for fans. Our reliable sources to see Shaq fall into a Christmas tree, Chuck’s bracelet story, and Kenny stumble on the stairs is 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? Well, this shift also means all traces of the NBA had to go from its former media partner’s atmosphere.
Every clip, picture, and post from Inside the NBA was deleted off all the pages.

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

This is the equivalent of a social media purge after a bad 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 breakup, this move rattled the Internet on Monday.

Fans lash out at the NBA for erasing TNT history

The NBA took charge of all content on October 1, with intent to start its own original programming from October 13. A mix of preseason games, previews, and shows on NBA TV sacrificed decades of content on 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 for no one to notice until it was all gone. People on Monday were like, “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 how that lawsuit went are inconclusive), fans claimed that this, “Act of cowardice,” is the league getting back at TNT for that. Chuck previously warned that they would lose all rights on the content and they’d have to pay about $300,000 for highlights. Yet fans found it shocking that TNT wasn’t allowed to keep its own 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 Chuck has repeatedly been talking about shows as fans have become hostile to the NBA TV shift because TNT’s history was erased.