Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Clearly, Kenny “The Jet” Smith is the point guard of Inside The NBA.
Smith was a consensus All-American at Carolina in 1987 and won back-to-back NBA championships with the Houston Rockets (during the two seasons his old UNC teammate Michael Jordan was trying professional baseball).
Smith may be the former basketball star with the lowest net worth among his two sidekicks, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, who leads the group with a net worth of $500 million. Barkley is next with $60 million. Smith reportedly is worth only $22 million, maybe because he has had two wives and three kids.
But make no mistake, The Jet is the straw that stirs the drink on the TNT pre-game, half-time and post-game shows for the NBA and college basketball during the NCAA Tournament. He shares the NBA table with Sir Charles and Shaq, and they all now make between $5-10 million per season.
Barkley may be the most popular with the general public because his average knowledge of technical basketball is far exceeded by his sense of humor and his sometimes-outlandish predictions. O’Neal is a serial tycoon of an entrepreneur with great wealth, and he is on to calm the waters more than crack jokes.
In short, Inside the NBA is a show full of highlights and hijinks.
Smith is the one that host Ernie Johnson turns to when some serious analysis is needed, and the still-in-shape Jet turns and jogs back to the big screen for video highlights that he obviously picks for the producers during the first half of each game because if there is a post-game show it is usually brief.
Barkley and O’Neal also have Carolina connections, but more minor than The Jet. Barkley beat out two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jordan for the honor in 1993 when he played for the Phoenix Suns. And O’Neal supposedly committed to UNC in the spring of 1988 and shook Dean Smith’s hand on it before he changed his mind and went to LSU.
While O’Neal, the 7-1, 300-pound center, and the 6-6, 250-pound Barkley were banging bodies in the paint, Kenny Smith led the Rockets and Hakeem Olajuwon to consecutive NBA titles by controlling play as their point guard.
Smith usually says the least but what he says means the most, as Inside The NBA has won numerous Emmys and has no peer among the dozens of other pregame shows in college and professional sports.
All four of them have talked about leaving Inside the NBA in recent years, but each time Ted Turner and his network have come up with offers none of them can refuse.
Featured image via Warner Bros./Discovery Sports
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
