Bill Simmons may have put his finger on one of the subtle reasons that Inside the NBA has not worked as well in its first season airing on ESPN.<\/p>\n
As the show nears its first run-through of the NBA Finals since being licensed by the Worldwide Leader, it has received many complaints<\/a> from viewers and media alike. And in a recent episode of his podcast<\/a>, Simmons acknowledged that the show\u2019s scheduling restraints are clearly holding it back, but added that one of the show\u2019s two main stars isn\u2019t carrying his weight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time they\u2019ve really had backlash, and I don\u2019t know how much of it\u2019s fair and how much of it isn\u2019t fair, but they\u2019ve also been in everybody\u2019s life for such a long time that it\u2019s kind of, this is an inevitable way that this could probably end,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the whole thing has felt off the whole year. I love that show, but the ESPN fit, some of the time that they have, the fact that they don\u2019t have the same time they had after the games, which is when I really thought that show was at the most important.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd to me, Shaq is the biggest issue with the show. It seems like he\u2019s there because it\u2019s fun to be on the show, but it doesn\u2019t seem like he follows basketball at a high enough level anymore. Like, he doesn\u2019t know who people like (Celtics forward) Baylor Scheierman are<\/a>. You\u2019re on a studio show covering a sport, you know? There has to be some sort of a modicum of following the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of ESPN\u2019s commitment to Scott Van Pelt\u2019s\u00a0SportsCenter as well as restrictions around ABC cutting to late-night local newscasts,\u00a0Inside the NBA\u00a0has far less room to stretch its legs postgame than it did on cable, when it aired for decades on TNT. The show also aired far fewer times than normal, as ESPN juggled the Los Angeles-based\u00a0NBA Countdown while bringing\u00a0Inside\u00a0in for the biggest games.<\/p>\n The result was far less\u00a0Inside, and it clearly affected the rhythm of everyone involved.<\/p>\n However, Simmons\u2019 criticisms of O\u2019Neal are less common in NBA media or on social media. O\u2019Neal took a while to come around after joining the show, but settled in as the show\u2019s class clown<\/a> and agitator while also finding his lane as an analyst. Even if O\u2019Neal often takes his barbs <\/a>toward fellow star big men too far<\/a>, he has a clear perspective that adds to the beloved show.<\/p>\n As Simmons noted, though, O\u2019Neal has largely been off the radar all year. Whereas Charles Barkley regularly does interviews and even has appeared on\u00a0Pardon the Interruption a handful of times during the season, and Kenny Smith signed a side deal with ESPN to appear on its studio shows, O\u2019Neal has been limited to just Inside, where his sole standout moment came in a bizarre interview with a young couple who went viral at an Indiana Pacers game<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps the show\u2019s irregular schedule this season hampered him, or O\u2019Neal truly is just not paying enough attention. Fortunately, Simmons believes the Hall of Famer and Inside collectively can end the season on a high note:<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a chance to flip the narrative again these next couple rounds. The basketball\u2019s better, there\u2019s more of a spotlight on them. It\u2019ll be easier for someone like Shaq because there\u2019s only four teams left, he can just watch the game and figure out what happened. He\u2019ll know who Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Simmons may have put his finger on one of the subtle reasons that Inside the NBA has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,2161,2002,1302,6587],"class_list":["post-735388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-bill-simmons","tag-inside-the-nba","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-the-bill-simmons-podcast"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116580986705971953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}