As their final season ticks down, the Inside the NBA on TNT crew is doing a bit of a greatest hits tour. The year-long awards for “Shaqtin’ A Fool” were last week, and last night we got a triumphant return of “Who He Play For?” … or it would’ve been if Charles Barkley had been able to read his cards correctly. Instead, we got Barkley fumbling his chance to host a contest.
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The TNT crew switched things up for the final round of “Who He Play For?” Instead of the usual competition between Barkley and cohost Shaquille O’Neal, it was Chuck quizzing the rest of the panel on hockey teams and their locations. In the golden debut of “Who He Skate For?” Draymond Green, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson and Shaq had to guess the answer based only on the team’s logo.
It all went wrong when Barkley misunderstood the cue card and started telling the answers before the logo even appeared. By the time he realized his mistake, three of the four logos were already identified, and only the newly minted Utah Mammoths remained. After calling the game stupid, Ernie had one final “Who He Play For?” quiz for failed gameshow host Chuck.
They showed Garrett Temple, the 15-year, 12-team (14 if you count G-League options) veteran, who is a notorious regular on the show, known for always stumping Barkley. Temple was shown in hockey gear with a black eye and a missing tooth. As the clock ticked down, Chuck took a shot.
“Toronto Raptors,” claimed Charles confidently. “We gonna take the [Stanley] Cup back because you guys are pissing us off with this tariff nonsense up there. I got your back, old Canada.”
Unfortunately for Barkley, Shaq was not content with his correct answer and immediately called foul play. Even though Temple was clearly wearing Raptors red, O’Neal claimed Barkley had used his previous cue cards to find the answer.
He may have had a point, as Chuck threw the cards off the table when Kenny asked if the answers were on the cards. “You little cheater,” Shaq kept repeating. Of course, Shaq cheated in a spelling bee last week, so why wouldn’t Chuck do the same?
When Ernie was handed the cards, it clearly showed a line at the end of the card which read: “BONUS: Garrett Temple(Raptors).”
Chuck chose to go down swinging, blaming the production team. He questioned, “Who do we have working here that dumb? Can’t believe somebody who work here is that dumb.”
As Inside the NBA goes off the air in the coming weeks (at least from TNT), it’s worth remembering, for the sake of public record, that Shaq has no leg to stand on here. From the spelling bee fiasco to the original “Who He Play For?” Guangdong Tigers scandal, O’Neal has often used underhanded tactics like this himself.
Call it the end of an era kindness to keep things light as something sad approaches, but none of the others called Shaq on his hypocrisy. Through the laughs, they just enjoyed the moment. That’s how it should be as this show’s time comes to a close.
