When Are TNT Employees Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Co. Heading Back to Work as Holiday Fever Dies Down?

The NBA games have been intense from the first day of 2024, but fans are missing the extra vibes of the Inside Crew. Unfortunately for fans, the wait for Inside the NBA’s return is going to be a tad longer. Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley are still reveling in the holiday spirit before they resume for the season. The games, though, will continue without them.

The January 2 games weren’t scheduled to air on TNT. But the award-winning post-game show and its famous quartet have a return date in sight.

When will Inside the NBA return?

Mark your calendars for January 4. Thursday will be the first broadcast of Inside the NBA in 2024. There are two games scheduled for TNT to start the calendar year – Milwaukee Bucks vs San Antonio Spurs followed by Denver Nuggets vs Golden State Warriors.

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Shaq, Chuck, Ernie, and Kenny will be back in Studio J with the usual antics of their free-scripted show. The TNT’s wall-to-wall coverage will begin with NBA Tip-Off, where the Inside Crew will catch up with all the action of the week they missed.

The double-header starts with the Bucks in Frost Bank Center in San Antonio at 7:30 pm EST. As soon as the buzzer sounds, the Inside the NBA team will recap the game. The TNT crew is a big fan of Giannis Antentokounmpo. But Shaq’s also gaining trajectory to support his Bol Bol-Victor Wembanyama claim. So expect him to stir the pot a bit and maybe make Sir Charles lose his cool once more.

From there, two NBA champions, Nikola Jokic and Stephen Curry will clash at Chase Center at 10 pm EST. Barkley took off early last time due to the flu. He missed Shaq making a cautious case to include Curry in the GOAT discussion. We’d have to find out Chuck’s opinion on that since he ‘loves’ the Warriors so much.

After this week, TNT will have the Inside the NBA broadcasts as usual for the January 11 and 15 double-headers. Meanwhile, at least some of them showed what they did during the holiday break.

Shaquille O’Neal’s time-off itinerary

Barkley hopefully spent the Christmas break recovering from the flu that made him miss half of the last broadcast. Ernie and Kenny didn’t share their holiday updates either. Shaq is built differently.

After bringing his daughter, Taahirah, to see him at work at TNT, he took her holiday shopping. There, Taahirah showed her dad paying for an entire Forever 21 shopper’s purchases. She also saw Shaq-a-Claus give a generous cash gift to a little girl. Shaq went about hosting other Shaq-a-Claus giveaways like that in South Fulton.

He spent New Year’s in Texas, headlining the Lights All-Night festival in Dallas. Taahirah was there with backstage access and more before she zipped off to the Toyota Center to watch the Houston Rockets play. It appears Shaq’s daughter is more serious about watching NBA games than he is.

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