After a regular season where Inside the NBA was on the ESPN airwaves sporadically, the postseason has finally brought more consistency from EJ, Kenny, Shaq, and Charles. But some of the issues that plagued the beloved show throughout its first season on ESPN still persist.
Inside the NBA only made a handful of appearances throughout the 2025-2026 NBA regular season in its first year being a licensed product on ESPN. Although we knew the schedule well ahead of time, it was still a shock to the system to see one of the greatest studio shows in sports history take so many prolonged absences. With a much more active schedule throughout the postseason, there were hopes that the show would return to its cultural zenith.
However, that has proven to not necessarily be the case, at least according to one of the authorities on NBA Twitter.
Rob “World Wide Wob” Perez is one of the most followed and most influential voices on NBA Twitter. And one of his major issues with Inside the NBA this season has been the limited run times for the show, especially when it has aired on ABC and run into strict airtime limits up against local broadcast affiliates.
After playoff coverage on ESPN on Wednesday, Perez called attention to one of the show’s trademark segments, “EJ’s Neat-o Stat of the Night” as falling short of what it was in the past.
“That NeatO segment was so bad, EJ had to apologize for it before signing off. As a longtime lover of this show, I am begging them to kill it after this season. The brand’s legacy is getting tarnished with every episode. Rocky V levels of “who signed off on this?” From the lack of creative segments/guests, to losing longtime producers, to the shortened shows on ABC, to these guys not paying attention anymore, to the erratic scheduling and varying channels… long live the po-lice presence days, but it’s over,” Perez wrote on social media.
There have been some highlights this postseason from Inside the NBA, like the recent McDonald’s segment that went off the rails. But it’s not an isolated opinion that Inside isn’t the force that it once was. For instance, today represents the two year anniversary of Charles Barkley’s famous rant about Galveston, Texas. And even that was an opportunity for influencers to voice their opinion that the show wasn’t what it once was.
If there’s one thing working in the favor of Inside the NBA this season it’s that the show will air on ESPN and ABC all the way through the NBA Finals. That likely means the biggest audiences that the program has ever had in its illustrious history. Hopefully ESPN will give them the time and space to do what they do best, which often has nothing to do with basketball whatsoever. Because none of us want to see Inside the NBA go out with a whimper.
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