Anyone watching last night’s Sacramento Kings game against the New York Knicks witnessed some post-game weirdness when TNT commentator Charles Barkley took to the mic to talk for more than five minutes on Donald Trump, politics, race, economics, and bad TV with the rest of the TNT crew, which was in town to broadcast the game to a national audience (Good thing the team won. Barely, after giving up a nice lead, but still).
Pretty sure Barkley must’ve requested a few minutes of time because it seemed oddly convenient that “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson would just suddenly inquire about his thoughts on the Republican candidate, the state of the race and the upcoming GOP debate.
And Barkley was ready to go, going off on not just Trump–slamming the Republican frontrunner’s comments on Muslims, in particular–but also Ben Carson and TNT’s sister network CNN.
“To be honest with you, CNN has done an awful job with this election. The have followed ratings and sound bites this entire cycle,” the “NBA on TNT” co-host said. “…I love CNN, they’re part of our company but they’ve been kissing butt chasing ratings.”
The thing also turned into a full-on political panel with Kenny Smith also weighing in with questions.
(Shaquille O’Neal also commented on Barkley’s eyebrows, but that’s neither here nor there).
The kicker (at least for the 916) came when Johnson asked why Barkley had chosen to take on this conversation at this particular game in Sacramento, the former basketball star said “because there’s nothing to do here.”
(The bit, unfortunately, is not part of the clip above but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.)
Nice one. Funny. Ha ha.Actually Barkley showed some real love, non-sound bite-love for Sacramento during his visit here, making an unannounced stop at The Mustard Seed School of Sacramento to deliver presents to children in need.
A Mustard Seed employee chronicled Barkley’s doings on Facebook.
Let me tell you how amazing this man is. Not only did he come to the school (no media) and talk with all of the class rooms. He bought pizza for them and then went shopping to buy all of the kids shoes (he could have easily gave money or sent someone to do it) but he wanted to do it!
Nothing to do in Sacramento, indeed.
