SI

ESPN vs. TNT Feud Gets Spicy After Charles Barkley and Shaq Light Up Kendrick Perkins

The network vs. network fighting heated up when ESPN's Perkins said TNT’s Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal don't watch NBA games.

Jimmy Traina

1. We love a little network vs. network fighting, so we enjoyed seeing what took place Tuesday between ESPN's Kendrick Perkins and TNT’s Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal.

It all started when Perkins appeared on The Michael Kay Show Monday and accused Barkley and O'Neal of not watching NBA games.

Kay asked Perkins about Barkley and Shaq dismissing the New York Knicks as contenders. That's when Perkins went in on the Turner Sports duo.

"It’s obvious that they don’t watch basketball,” Perkins said. “I’m serious, they can’t watch basketball on a consistent basis. The only time they actually probably watch the Knicks are when they’re covering the Knicks on their game nights.”

This was a smart play by Perkins because TNT's studio show is the king, so if you want some attention, you go after the king. The question was whether Shaq and Barkley would respond.

And they did. As only they can.

Inside the NBA used Blake Griffin's Tuesday retirement announcement as an opportunity to show a clip of Griffin dunking on Perkins. That was only the beginning, though.

Shaq: I watched that game.

Kenny Smith: He had like three dunks in the same game.

Ernie Johnson: You watched that game, huh?

Smith: The Knick game and this game, he had three dunks.

Shaq: We don't watch the Knicks games, Chuck, but I watched that game.

Barkley: Shaq, you out there killin' roaches, aren't you?

Shaq: Oh, you know it.

Barkley: Five points a game, you gonna call ME out?"

You simply cannot return fire any better than the TNT crew did.

For the record, though, Perkins averaged 5.4 points per game in his career.

2. Speaking of TNT, Reggie Miller is facing a slew of criticism after a confusing and, to be quite frank, ridiculous take, that the Los Angeles Lakers might want to intentionally consider missing a free throw, so they only go up three points with 2.7 seconds left in regulation against the New Orleans Pelicans, instead of making both free throws and going up by four to end the game.

I don't want to pile on Miller. Broadcasters mess up. It's part of the business. I think Miller was trying to get too cute and act super smart here and it just didn't make sense. It's gonna happen.

What struck me the most about this, though, is Jeff Van Gundy, who is the best NBA analyst today, is out there not working. I still don't understand how ESPN could let him go and why TNT didn't hire him.

3. A brand new episode of SI Media with Jimmy Traina dropped today and it features a conversation with the new WWE Undisputed Heavyweight champion, Cody Rhodes.

Rhodes talks about "finishing his story" at WrestleMania 40 by beating Roman Reigns for the title, the epic main event which featured appearances by John Cena and The Undertaker and whether he had a moment with Reigns after the match.

Rhodes also discusses the WWE changing the WrestleMania event after it was announced that it would be The Rock vs. Reigns, the WWE pushing the envelope with its content during the storyline of Rhodes vs. The Bloodline, the special gift that Triple H gave him after the WrestleMania main event, the Undertaker taking the place of “Stone Cold" Steve Austin during the main event and Paul Heyman's Hall of Fame speech.

Other topics covered during the interview include Rhodes’s tour bus catching on fire during WrestleMania weekend, his love of giving out gifts, issues with going to Disney World, being a "needy" superstar and much more.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the tweet below or by visiting Apple and Spotify and you can watch the podcast on YouTube.

4. Aaron Rodgers on Jan. 8, 2024: "Anything in this building that we're doing that has nothing to do with winning needs to be assessed. Everything that we do has to have a purpose ... the bull---- that has nothing to do with winning has to get out of the building."

Rodgers on a podcast in late February: "The blueprint, the game plan was made in the '80s. Create a pandemic, you know, with a virus that's going wild, right? Only—he was given, Fauci was given over $350 million to research this, to come up with drugs, new or repurposed to handle the AIDS pandemic. And all they came up with AZ—was AZT. And if you do even a smidge of research—and I know, I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an immunologist, whatever the f***—I can read, though. And I can learn and look things up just like any normal person, you know. I can do my own research, which is so vilified, to even question authority."

Rodgers on a podcast in early April: “So, Bobby [Kennedy] loses his uncle [JFK] and his father [RFK]. His cousin [JFK Jr.] dies in a plane crash when he was running against Hillary Clinton. I’m not saying that was a conspiracy, but it’s kind of a weird coincidence."

So, for the record, since saying the New York Jets need to stop the bull----, Rodgers has publicly implied that Hillary Clinton had something to do with JFK Jr.'s plane crash and that AIDS was a created pandemic.

5. On his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, Torre somehow found an old video that the Knicks put together to recruit LeBron James when he was a free agent in 2010. The sales pitch from New York included a skit involving Tony and Carmela Soprano.

6. Caitlin Clark's run as the most move-the-needle athlete since Tiger Woods isn't slowing down now that her college career is over.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Jets are historically awful on the field, but this was excellent work by their social media team.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X,Instagram and TikTok. 

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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