Charles Barkley “Just Don’t Give a Damn”, Claims NBA Veteran Despite Raising TNT’s Tensions With Controversial Interview

Inside the NBA was your run-of-the-mill basketball show for a decade until Charles Barkley showed up straight out of retirement. If he was untamed on the court, he was unfiltered in a studio. It made him a popular analyst and made Inside the NBA a cultural phenomenon. And it might be ending soon. Jeff Teague, who’s had his fair share of unfiltered Chuck on the show, is like many of us, going through bittersweet feelings about the show ending. On Club 520, he chose to take it positively and talked about how fun the (potentially) final season of the show will be. While Chuck is ready to go down fighting, Teague reiterated all our emotions that they’ll miss the unabashed analyst most.

Teague flexed a tiny bit that he’s been on the show’s All-Star broadcast when he was playing for the Atlanta Hawks in 2015. Apart from the blinding studio lights, he loved every bit. Yet his co-host had to remind him he flexed about giving the ‘blueprint to win’ to his opponents in front of Chuck and was smacked with, “they beat y’all.” Despite the embarrassment, Chuck left Teague cracking up.

Breaking out his best Chuck impression, the Club 520 trio heaped praises on Chuck. Teague even said, “Charles Barkley is one of my favorite people in general. Like I love hearing him talk ‘cuz he just don’t give a damn.”  They even joked that Shaq and Kenny threw his lack of championship at him so much because they knew he was better than him.

There would be another reason Chuck did Teague dirty unintentionally. In 2021, Teague had landed with the Bucks and was going to play against the Hawks. However, Chuckster was living in the past. He advised the Hawks, “I would start Jeff Teague.” Except the Hawks can’t tell the Bucks who they can start. That made for some chuckles on the erstwhile Twitter though Teague didn’t respond.

He has a point about Barkley’s brand of bluntness though. While it made Inside the NBA popular, it’s now keeping TNT on its toes.

Charles Barkley gives TNT a hard time

Before the official announcement, news surfaced that the NBA had sealed the deal with NBC and TNT might be losing the NBA. Since then Chuck has upped his tirade against TNT bosses. He called them “clowns” for botching up negotiations which allegedly led the PR team to prevent the Inside Guys from talking to the media. So Shaquille O’Neal said when an interviewer asked them after Game 2 in Milwaukee.

Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith refused to talk to an NY Times reporter. But Barkley defied the TNT memo and gave an unauthorized interview. He proceeded to disparage Turner for putting hundreds of jobs at risk. Per the report, he argued with Ernie and Kenny too and told them, “I can talk to who I want to,” when they said to consult with the PR team. He went on a tirade again on SI Media slamming TNT execs for not talking to him directly.

As Teague said, Chuck doesn’t care. And he might just make the final season of Iniside the NBA full of unscripted entertainment.