The Inside The NBA cast definitely go on some comedic runs sometimes that don’t have a whole lot to do with the basketball games they’re supposedly analyzing. The latest example of that came in the early hours of Tuesday morning after the conclusion of the Phoenix Suns’ 123-109 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on TNT. The show tried to have some discussion of the Boston Celtics’ 119-106 win over the Atlanta Hawks earlier in the night, ending a few minutes of video on that with post-game clips of Jayson Tatum and Derrick White talking about White’s 26-point game. But when the cameras cut back to the studio, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal wound up laughing about White’s hairline for minutes, with Barkley even comparing him to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith (around 0:55):
Charles Barkley and Shaq cracked up for minutes over Derrick White's hairline early Wednesday morning. "Stephen A. play for the Celtics! He do First Take in the morning and play for the Celtics, that dude's going to be tired!'" pic.twitter.com/c6Sg574LkN
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 19, 2023
“Is that Derrick White or Stephen A.? Damn, Derrick! Damn, Stephen A.! Stephen A. play for the Celtics! He do First Take in the morning and play for the Celtics, that dude’s going to be tired!'” O’Neal then starts singing “You’ll never find, blum blum blum blum, a hairline like mine!”, from 2002’s All About The Benjamins (clip here, with a language warning). And Ernie Johnson then chimes in with some roasting of his panelists, saying to Kenny Smith “I join you in a headshake,” and later “The guy’s averaging 25 points in the series, and here are these guys going like this.”
Kenny Smith then tries to make an actual basketball point about how the Celtics have that kind of scoring from both White and Malcolm Brogdon, but gets overrun by O’Neal singing again and Barkley saying “Hey, man, you’re acting like y’all didn’t notice that!” Smith says “Y’all act like you’ve never seen Derrick White ever in your life!'”, and Barkley says “I’ve never seen him like that! He always has a headband on.”
Here’s how that wrapped up:
Here’s the conclusion of the Charles Barkley and Shaq discussion of Derrick White’s hair, complete with “We’ll see you and your forehead in the Eastern Conference Finals!” pic.twitter.com/4Od8xvNrtC
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 19, 2023
Smith then says “Derrick White, you’re a great player,” and Johnson chimes in “And you’re having a heck of a series so far, and continued good luck to you, and we apologize. I apologize for my buddies here.” Smith then says “It’s late at night, we got nothing else to do here, nothing to do but watch you get 25 a night.” Barkley then says, while cracking up, “We’ll see you and your forehead in the Eastern Conference Finals! We’re going to the Eastern Conference Finals, aren’t we? We get to see that in person!”
Johnson then says “The bookends here tonight [gesturing at Barkley and O’Neal], a little out of control,” and throws to break. But the show goes to break with a photo of Barkley with White’s hairline scribbled on him, and “s-head” scribbled on his forehead. And it has Barkley saying “D-White, we just joking around, man. It’s 1:10 in the morning, man!”
That’s quite the extended run on what a player looks like, and quite the unusualness even by late-night Inside The NBA standards. But it did give us a chance to hear O’Neal sing, and to get Barkley’s thoughts on Stephen A. Smith’s appearance.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]
