Charles Barkley: ‘I don’t think Ernie Johnson would leave Atlanta. Ever’

Charles Barkley: “My original game plan was to retire at 60. I had told TNT, ‘I’m retiring at 60,’ and they were like, ‘Okay.’ And I said, ‘Hey, I’m just giving y’all a heads up, I’m retiring next year.’ They were like, ‘You gotta stay till the new deal is done.’ I’m like, ‘Damn,’ because they needed me for the negotiation. Little did I know they were going to mess that up. I said, ‘You know what, you guys have been great to me. I’ll stay for two more years.’ So next year was supposed to be my last year, and I was going to walk off into the sunset. But little did I know, like I just said, because it would have been perfect to pass the torch to Vince Carter or Jamal Crawford. Hey, 25 years, thank y’all, I’ll be 62 years old. And then the marketing race came, and I said, ‘Oh, this is actually even better for me. I can walk away out the next year and don’t have to worry about going to another network.’” -via YouTube / September 8, 2024