Soccer legend and French superstar Thierry Henry once said, “I mean if you don’t like the game watching Bird and Johnson then you have a problem…” He fell in love with the NBA a very long time ago and now continues to support, thanks to the emergence of French superstars like Victor Wembanyama. However, unlike Henry, his co-analyst Jamie Carragher had little to no information about basketball or basketball legends. Yet, the Englishman wasn’t shy to caution Shaquille O’Neal and make a plea for Ernie Johnson in order to win a trophy.

A clip from CBS Sports went viral, where the former Liverpool star was enquiring about the competition in the Emmy’s race. “Who’s on that show?” Host Kate Abdo replied, “Inside the NBA? Uh, Shaq, Chuck.” Unable to process names, the Champions League winner said, “Who’s Shuck?” Once he got to know about Shaquille O’Neal, he couldn’t resist but send a warning, “Shaq, we are coming for ya.” Even Henry was elated. “Let’s go.”

The Inside the NBA show and CBS draw a lot of parallels because of the chemistry. The nonstop banter on both shows makes it a fan favorite. That’s why the warning shot, which was about the Emmy award race, where Inside the NBA stands tall with 19 awards. Considering the impact then, Carragher was even ready to offer a job to Ernie Johnson, who became the show’s first permanent host, a year after it was started.

“Could we get Ernie to do our show? Would that help us get the Emmy?” he inquired. Host Abdo, before responding, tried to calm herself, because she had heard many invalid takes from Carragher. “You think Ernie’s watching this mess and thinks, Oh, now there’s a show I wanna be part of.” 

But Carragher continued to poke his host and said, “Maybe if he did it, it wouldn’t be a mess.”

The plea for Johnson does come at an interesting time since Inside the NBA is most probably in its last year. With no guarantee on how the future would be. Regardless, with decades-long ties to the network, it has been clear that Johnson isn’t going anywhere.

But as long as the show lasted in certainty, it has been a fun ride, which even Henry tried to explain earlier this year.

Henry pays respect to Shaquille O’Neal and the Inside Guys

While speaking to the Athletic, the Arsenal legend made it clear that they weren’t acting on the show. All four of them are as real as they can get and compare the situation with Inside guys. “You can see when Charles Barkley is upset. You can see when Shaq is. They don’t try to cushion it.”

Similarly, Henry spoke about why some people may avoid fooling around with him because of his persona. And once again gave an example of Shaquille O’Neal. “I watch Inside The NBA, and it’s very difficult at times when anyone tries to joke with Shaq because he will just say, ‘Four rings.’ So you say, ‘OK, sorry, bye.'” The constant gags and punchlines against each other make the CBS show more viral. As per CBS, the Champions League coverage got more than 3.5 billion video views across social media last season. And the majority of which were from their Champions League Today studio show.

Even though they got the views, Inside the NBA came away with three precious Emmy Awards. “Inside the NBA” won the category of Outstanding Studio Show — Limited Run, while Charles Barkley took Outstanding Studio Analyst over Shaquille O’Neal and Ernie Johnson won Outstanding Studio Host.

“Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting second episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and Mountain West All-Freshman Team Selection, Asia Avinger.”