Charles Barkley has picked his successor, and it is not one of the names people expected.
Speaking on Westwood One’s BetMGM GameDay LIVE podcast, Barkley said Jalen Rose should take his chair on Inside the NBA when he leaves. “Jalen Rose, to me, would be the perfect guy because he’s done the most with us,” Barkley said.
The Retirement Is Conditional
Barkley, 63, told The Bill Simmons Podcast in September that the coming season is his last, with a caveat. “Unless Ernie changes his mind, next year is my last year, 100 percent,” he said. He has described himself and Ernie Johnson as a package deal.
Johnson has not publicly confirmed his own timing, which means the whole thing is still hypothetical. Barkley has also said he originally planned to retire at 60 and extended twice when the show changed networks, partly to protect the production staff. “The only reason I stayed is so that everybody could keep their jobs behind the scenes,” he said.
For the record, since this keeps getting written wrong: Inside the NBA has been on ESPN since the 2025-26 season, licensed from TNT Sports after Warner Bros. Discovery lost NBA rights. The current cast is Johnson hosting with Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith.
Why Rose Makes Sense
Rose played 13 NBA seasons, was part of Michigan’s Fab Five, and has guest-hosted Inside the NBA multiple times, usually filling in for O’Neal. Barkley’s reasoning was about reps, not resume. Rose has actually sat at that desk with that crew and made it work.
That matters more than people think. The show is a chemistry act. It does not run on analysis. It runs on four people who can interrupt each other without it curdling, and plenty of excellent broadcasters cannot do that.
He Has Changed His Mind Before
During the 2024 NBA Finals, Barkley floated a completely different list: “I’m going to pass the baton to Jamal Crawford or Vince Carter or you Steve [Smith].” Crawford responded on Instagram with “Only ONE Chuck … Wow.”
So this is a revision, not a decree. Barkley does not run ESPN’s hiring, and no reporting suggests the network has spoken to Rose or has any succession plan at all.
My Take
Rose is the right pick available. He is quick, he is comfortable being the second-funniest person in a room, and he has the on-camera miles. ESPN laid him off in 2023, which makes a return slightly awkward and does not make it wrong.
The bigger question is whether the show survives losing Barkley and Johnson at once. Inside the NBA is not a format you can hand to new people. It is four specific humans. Replace two of them and you have a different program wearing the same logo.
ESPN has a year to figure that out. Barkley just told them where he would start.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.