We say it so often that there is no better studio show than Inside the NBA. And that is totally true, staggeringly so. Forget ESPN, which has for a good 20 years now since getting the NBA contract (ironically, from NBC) in 2003 failed at putting together anything close to what TNT has. Yes, there are a few shows that combine analysis and jovialness - be it College Gameday, or the current flavor of the moment of CBS/Paramount's Champions League group (Kate Abdo, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, Micah Richards). But even those shows aren't close, because what makes Inside the NBA so great is also what makes it unique - it is a world class comedy show parading as a sports one.
The analysis on Inside the NBA has never been all that great, but to criticize it for that is to miss the forest for the trees. Again, Inside the NBA is one of the great shows of all time because it is an unscripted comedy show. It exists to make people laugh, to make people have fun, to make people enjoy a 60-ish minute stretch on something tangentially connected to a game we all love. But I do truly believe if you say down someone who has never seen the NBA and has no use for sport, and had them watch Inside the NBA, they would love it for the jokes alone.
There are so many things to note about what makes Inside the NBA special, but I want to focus on a few that go beyond what everyone knows (the unfilteredness, etc.). Firstly, the fact that they laugh at each others jokes. One of the weirder aspects of most sitcoms, even truly great ones, is that the characters are so plainly saying funny things yet no one is laughing. Inside the NBA, because it is unplanned and unvarnished, is so much better for the fact that the cast is laughing along with us. They laugh at Chuck's take on San Diego women or various allusions to liking blowjobs. They laugh at Shaq tripping over his lines from time to time. They just laugh and we do along with them.
Next is the fact they sometimes have tiffs, and they lean into those / gang up on each other. There's teh famous clips like Shaq's famous "it's 1 to 2 to 3, not 1 to 2 and back to 1" when Charles and Kenny traded responses without giving Shaq a chance to respond. Similarly so many times has Charles gotten perturbed over something and the others bash him on it.
Next is they have the rare ability to beat bits into the ground without them ever losing their sheen. The best two examples are Shaqtin' a Fool, which might be the most perfect running gag, and the Gone Fishing conceit to wish all eliminated teams a good offseason. Shaqtin is never not funny, and Gone Fishing has the great gag of truly awful photoshop. If anything, Inside the NBA has made perfect in bad photoshop - nothing better when they combine the two with weird photoshop work interspersed within Shaqtin clips.
Next is how good the show gets when they flip the switch to real topics, be it Shaq when he gets introspective on what he's lost in life, or Charles and Kenny speaking out about black issues. Of course Ernie's battles with cancer. The team is so earnest, so real adn special even when they need to perfectly switch to seriousness and away from silliness. But man o man the silliness.
Nothing will replace it. Most sad is that coming into this season Shaq and Charles both signed extensions that made it seem that this show that has gone on since the early 90's, and with the current quadro since 2012, would never leave us. And now it looks like it might. We will all savor the return of roundball rock, which is as universally accepted as the best sports theme song as Inside the NBA is as a sports show. But that is not going to make up for it.
Every season, when whichever Confrence Finals TNT has ends, to me the NBA season does. I don't rue the end of the sport, but the end of the hourly brilliance that is Inside the NBA. When the first Thursday of the season hits adn we get it back, it is the return of the season. I like basketball, I love Inside the NBA. Thanks to Youtube it will live forever in clip form online, and if TNT is smart they would release old episodes on HBO Max or something or the like, but it won't be the same. It seems inevitable the best sports show ever will end, but at least they're going out on top.
