The Inside the NBA crew is famous for its unfiltered commentary, but Charles Barkley nearly took it a step too far. Chuck has never been one to bite his tongue, but a recent goof-up could have had network executives scrambling. The moment forced his veteran co-host, Ernie Johnson, to come in clutch and play the role of a quick-thinking censor.

Sir Charles was about to drop the F-Bomb. But he didn’t.

“Can I look at this camera right here?” said Barkley. “There are some fools at home. Well, on the internet. They’re at home now. Saying that we were talking bad about the players, so they (ESPN) made us work less. Shut the hell up. Shut the hell up.”

Before saying hell, Barkley was about to say the f-word, and paused to avoid saying it. Johnson appreciated the swerve, as Shaquille O’Neal urged him to take one for the team while Kenny Smith couldn’t stop laughing.

“Nice catch, by the way,” said Johnson.

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This wasn’t the first time with Barkley. In 2025, amid the entire Jimmy Butler-Miami Heat fiasco, the Inside the NBA analyst lost his mind after hearing that Butler had lost his “joy” playing basketball. The moment Barkley called it “b——-,” it was Johnson again who had to remind the panel that they weren’t on a podcast.

Inside the NBA has won 21 Sports Emmys. Barkley has been doing this show for 25 years. He clearly knows that any obscene language is a big no-no on television. He did not blurt out an expletive today, but stated his opinion very clearly, allegedly directed at Colin Cowherd.

The backdrop is the rocky 2025-26 transition of Inside the NBA from TNT to ESPN and ABC under an 11-year deal. Yes, TNT Sports in Atlanta is still producing the show, but there has been a scheduling shift. After decades as a weekly ritual, they appeared only a handful of times in the first half of the regular season. Cowherd knew the apparent reason.

“ESPN buried that show,” Cowherd said on his FS1 and Fox Sports Radio show. “ESPN has a great relationship with the NBA, and they said, ‘Yeah, we’ll bring that show over. You won’t see it as much.’ Put it on the shelf a little bit… Charles is complaining; it feels obvious to me. David Stern (former NBA commissioner) didn’t like when people were critical of the NBA either. They’re very sensitive in the NBA.”

Last week, Barkley said on The Dan Le Batard Show that Inside the NBA’s transition “has been great.” However, he did complain about having too light a workload, after spending more than a year warning ESPN not to work him too hard. So, he shut down the narrative about ESPN forcefully shelving the show.

“This is already scheduled,” Barkley clarified, pushing back on conspiracy theories. “This was already planned months and months ago. All I said was I would like to work more.”

While Barkley may have a gripe with the network, he won’t let any false narrative dominate the headlines.

Charles Barkley is ready for a not-so-lighter schedule

The issue that Barkley raised was simple. After being on TV weekly, the ESPN crew appeared just four times since the start of the season.

“We’ve complained,” Barkley said. “We did like the first two weeks, we were off all of December until Christmas, and we’re off all of January until now. I don’t like that at all.”

Cowherd used this statement against ESPN’s agenda of not airing Inside the NBA. But here are the facts. The show is set for a more consistent run of episodes leading into nightly coverage for the second half of the regular season. The show returned on Saturday, January 24, with future dates already locked in.

From that point forward, 14 weekend-heavy episodes are planned through the end of the regular season.

But that doesn’t mean Barkley was not asking for nonstop airtime. In fact, he joked that he had no interest in being “on ESPN 1, 2, 3, Deportes, Nacho, Echo, whatever they call it.”

So, what frustrated him was the absence of balance.