The King of Thrash Talk: Barkley Takes Down Redick

It didn’t matter that “Inside The NBA” was showing highlights from the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves. Charles Barkley went in on Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick anyway.

Barkley spent the majority of TNT’s airing of Celtics-Wolves clips talking about Redick, his criticism and how bad he thought the Lakers were, saying that changing head coaches was like “putting makeup on a pig.” Host Ernie Johnson vainly tried to keep Barkley on course, to no avail.

As part of the seemingly annual tedious discussion about NBA ratings, Redick criticized the NBA’s national partners for failing at “celebrating our game.” As part of a four-minute answer, the ESPN broadcaster-turned-NBA-coach said, “If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, well, I’m not going to watch the product.”

Redick never mentioned Barkley or “Inside The NBA,” but Barkley took the jabs personally, warning Redick, “If you come at the king, you best not miss.”

Barkley doubled down on his criticism of modern NBA basketball, claiming his comments and those of Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal weren’t hurting rating because they aren’t “out there jacking up 100 threes a night.” (Boston and Minnesota combined for 96 three-point attempts Thursday.)

But Barkley’s most savage comments were about Redick’s job security, calling him a “dead man walking” as Lakers head coach.

“They got rid of Frank Vogel, who did a good job. They got rid of Darvin Ham, who did a good job,” Barkley continued. “You came out there thinking you were gonna change things with that same ugly girl you went on a date with.”

Beyond the argument about the prevalence of three pointers, the bigger issue is that Redick seems to think “Inside The NBA” should be cheerleading for the league when what makes the show unique is that Barkley & Co. shoot from the hip. Perhaps that’s Redick’s perspective coming from the more sanitized world of ESPN, who will begin broadcasting “Inside” next season.

One thing is certain. On a night where TNT broadcast the entirety of the Celtics-Wolves game, along with halftime and postgame highlights, no one would have remembered another highlight package from the same game without Barkley’s rant. As Redick knows from his career delivering hot takes for ESPN, that’s the kind of TV that does boost ratings.