Just like the fire-breathing Pat McAfee earlier than him, Charles Barkley will not be going to tone down his rhetoric or make claims that he doesn’t imagine for the good thing about ESPN.
Barkley already is daring ESPN to fireplace him earlier than his first look on the community that can take over “Contained in the NBA” subsequent season.
“I’m not going to alter my character,” Barkley mentioned throughout an episode of Outkick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich,” based on Terrible Asserting.
“Ain’t no one — they’ll’t fireplace me. I make an excessive amount of cash to get fired. So, they’ll’t fireplace me. To begin with, in the event that they fireplace me, they bought to pay me for seven years, and I’m going to give up method earlier than then. But when they need to fireplace me, I might love for them to try this. The one resolution we’ve been making is how lengthy I’m going to work… I’m not frightened about getting fired. And no one at ESPN goes to inform me what to say or do. Interval.”
ESPN will start licensing “Inside The NBA” subsequent season after TNT Sports activities misplaced its NBA broadcast rights. Barkley reportedly signed a 10-year, $210 million contract in 2022 to be an analyst on the most effective basketball pregame and postgame present.
However Barkley doesn’t sound like he’s desirous about doing appearances on “Get Up,” “First Take,” “SportsCenter” or every other ESPN programming as soon as he joins.
Particularly not if he’s sharing the airwaves with ESPN’s NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins.
“I’m going to do what I need to do,” Barkley mentioned. “No one’s going to inform me what to say, or what to do. I get upset. [ESPN] is like, ‘The Lakers are contenders.’ I’m like, ‘No, they’re not.’ They know they’re not contenders.
“Kendrick Perkins, who don’t know his ass from a gap within the wall, he’s like, ‘The Lakers are contenders. The Lakers are contenders.’ And I mentioned, ‘They’re not contenders.’ And, clearly, if you happen to lose within the first spherical [of the playoffs], you aren’t a contender.”
Barkley mentioned he was going to retire after this season however is sticking round “to verify the individuals I like and work with for the final 25 years (at TNT) bought a job” after the community change.
“That’s one which’s been very attention-grabbing and irritating for me; we really do not know how that is going to work,” Barkley mentioned. The notion that I’m going to work extra as I become older, that’s simply not going to occur.”
