Charles Barkley, 59, has two years left on his TNT contract and is weighing retirement. He reveals that Kobe Bryant once signed to join Inside the NBA but backed out because he didn't want to do the promotional work and radio commitments the job demands.
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What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. And speaking of, of playing as long as I could possibly play, I can't help but to ask, I know since I started coming to Turner and working with you guys, I've been hearing even well before that, that Chuck's gonna retire in about a year, Chuck's gonna retire in about 2 years. And I know you recently just came out and said you maybe got 2 more years. And then that's it. Like, is it serious this time? Or do you just kind of take it year by year and go on how you feel?
Well, I think that you're gonna run into this when you get older. Dude, I've been doing this 21 years. Like, if I was doing it 5 years, I wouldn't be thinking about retiring. So I'm in year 21 now. And then I got 2 more years left on my contract. And like I say, dude, I turned 59 last week. So I ain't no young-ass dude, and I'm smart enough to know, and I'm not one of those guys who worried about death. If I die tomorrow, man, I had a good run. But I do know I'm closer to death than I am living. And I'm gonna be a grandpa hopefully in the next week to 10 days.
Wow, congratulations.
And I don't wanna, like I say, and I can say, I don't wanna die on television. I wanna be dying traveling the world, having fun. You know, I wanna be a great grandpa. I do, I wanna be a great grandfather. But like I say, I'll be 60 years, 61 in 2 years. And like I say, we don't know how this thing gonna end, but I wanna be able to say like, man, he wasn't working. He was traveling the world. He was having fun. He was golfing. He was fishing. Man, I just saw Charles. Yeah. He was over in Italy. I saw him on the head of, you know, I just saw him, he was over in Germany. I just saw him, he was over in Spain. I mean, 'cause all the work that we have done, you know, going back to dribbling that stupid basketball in the parks and things like that.
Mm-hmm.
Like, you built yourself an amazing life, yourself and me. Like, why not enjoy the back nine?
Absolutely.
Because even though the work ain't hard and it's fun, you still have something to do all the time. I tell people, I says, "You still have stuff to do all the time." And that's what, like, if I could just show up at the studio and just do basketball, like, no, I have to do X amount of interviews a day. I have to, you know, like, you know, you have to go and pump up the show. That's really what's really fun. I'll tell you this funny story. Not many people know this. And I'm probably gonna get in trouble for telling you this. We actually hired Kobe Bryant.
At Turner?
At Turner. But he didn't wanna do all the other bullshit. This is one of the, and I'm probably gonna get in trouble for saying this, but this is one of the like little things that we kept, we keep in the closet. So he actually signed with us, but then when we started telling him like, you know, I have to do a bunch of radio shows Like, "Hey, I go on this show on Mondays." I'm, "Hey, from Thursday Night TNT, same thing on Tuesday, same thing on Wednesday, same thing on Thursday." He like, "Yeah, I don't wanna do all that stuff." He says, "Well, you have to promote the show, Kobe." So Kobe actually is so funny. And like I say, it's probably only 10 people in the world know that, that he actually signed with us. He's like, "Nah, I'm not doing all that other bullshit." He just like, "Nah." But it was funny 'cause like I say, we always had something to do.
Yeah. So wait, hold on. So Kobe signed and he was gonna be on like just one of the guys on the Thursday night crew?
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, he had signed with us. David Levy, my old boss, had signed him to a deal. And we were excited. We were really excited. And then he called me back like a week, 10 days later, somewhere in that timeframe like, "Yeah, Kobe's not gonna come." We're like, "Why?" 'Cause he don't wanna do all that. All the PR stuff. He don't want to go on radio shows and talk about basketball. I'm like, "Well, that's part of the gig." I mean, people need to know, "Hey, I'm on Thursday night." 'Cause if you notice when you do interviews, they're like, "Hey, welcome from TNT Thursday Night, Charles Barkley." Yep. Same thing, you know, you talk to Kenny and Shaq, they always, 'cause that's part of promoting the show. So it was funny though, he didn't want to do all that. And he never came to work for us.
Wow, that's interesting. I think that's great for me too, because the reality is, you see the job that you guys do, and unless you're tuned in to the radio shows or you catch one of your snippets when you break the internet, you don't really know anything past you going up there on Thursday nights.
Yeah.
And yet it seems to be so much more to the job than people even know. You know, you'll hear people say, "Oh man, Chuck make all this money and he only work one night a week." And from by what you're saying, that's far from the truth.
Well, it is far from the truth. Well, 'cause really the only time you really work is during the playoffs. You like work every day for 2 months. I mean, that's when it's hectic and there's a lot going on. But during the regular season, you really only working one day a week. So that's when you really have to pump it up more. Like everybody's gonna watch the playoffs. Like when the playoffs start, they on 40 days and 40 nights. But during the regular season, you have to pump it up all week. Like, "Hey, we're at Charles Barkley Thursday night." I do that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Just let, but like, I mean, that's part of the gig. But you know, Kobe didn't wanna do all that stuff. And it never worked out.
That's funny. I mean. Especially for someone as hard as working as Kobe, like, nah, I don't wanna do all that. But then you think about it. And the reality is for everything that he gave to the game of basketball, I can understand him saying like, nah, that's too much for me. Like, I don't wanna do that. And quite similar to what you're saying about being a great grandfather, I think at that point in his life, the most important thing for him then was being a great husband. And being a great dad. And we saw that, you know, like we saw that with Gigi and her basketball career. You see the videos with him at the mall with the baby girl and all of that. So I think that's a very interesting, just a very interesting thing overall.
But you know, as a dad to a daughter, the bond you have Like, I've been in the NBA for 37 years, and guys don't give a shit about sons, but they love their sons. They love their sons. But it's just something about a girl, that she has you wrapped around her finger. And like, I used to joke about my daughter all the time. I said, my daughter asked me, "Dad, I wanna go to outer space." I was like, "Well, let me see if we can fit it in the budget." There's no way you can tell your daughter no. Like I say, I've been in the NBA for 37 years. Dudes tell their son like, "Get the hell away from me, man. No, you can't have that. You can't have that." But I ain't never heard one of my dudes say, "Yeah, man, my daughter, I ain't got no chance against her. Whatever she wants, I'm gonna give her." And then when I got my daughter, I was like, "Damn, I know what you mean now." Yeah. Yeah, I was like, "Nah, man, whatever." I mean, she just the most, like, and it's crazy. How they have so much control over you. And like I say, I've been around this game, and the guys will tell their sons all the time, "Man, leave me alone, man. You're buggin' the hell outta me." But when it come to their daughter, like, "Nope, whatever she want, she gonna get." It's a really crazy dynamic, but it's true.
