Charles Barkley is revealing something surprising about a fellow NBA great.
Appearing this week on Draymond Green’s podcast for The Volume, Barkley said that the late Kobe Bryant very nearly joined TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”
“We actually hired Kobe Bryant at Turner,” said Barkley. “But he didn’t wanna do all the other bulls–t. I’m probably gonna get in trouble for saying this, but it’s one of the little things we keep in-house. He actually signed with us, but … you know, I have to do a bunch of radio shows. I go on this show on Mondays, from Thursday night TNT, same thing on Tuesday, same thing on Wednesday, same thing on Thursday. He like, ‘Yeah, I don’t wanna do all that stuff.’ [We said], “Well, you have to promote the show, Kobe.’
“So Kobe, actually it’s so funny,” Barkley went on. “Like I said, it’s probably only ten people in the world know that. That he actually signed with us [and was] like, ‘Nah, I’m not doing all that other bulls–t.’ But it was funny because like I said, we always have something to do.”
Barkley then clarified that Bryant was set to be an “Inside the NBA” regular and had signed the deal with ex-Turner president David Levy but backed out roughly a week later because he decided he did not want to do the PR work.
It is pretty cool to imagine what Bryant would have been like as part of the “Inside the NBA” crew, especially considering his love-hate relationship with longtime Los Angeles Lakers teammate Shaquille O’Neal. There were indeed reports just days after Bryant retired in 2016 that Turner was courting him. But it turns out that Bryant, though he had mutual interest in such a gig, did not care for all the promotional commitments that would come along with it.
Photo: May 20, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Former NBA player and current TNT television personality Charles Barkley prior to game one of the Eastern Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs between the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers at Philips Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
