The thing about the Inside the NBA show and the crew is that they’re guaranteed to leave you with a laugh while also hitting you with solid analysis.
That’s what makes the show what it is. It’s funny. Especially when you’ve got Charles Barkley, Shaq and Kenny Smith all ribbing one another and telling hilarious stories.
RELATED: Ernie Johnson on the life behind the scenes as the host of Inside the NBA.
Where the show can lose the plot sometimes is when the crew makes fun of the current NBA players.
Sometimes it can be in-bounds. There are times where players do things that are pretty hilarious, whether it’s a wild decision on court or a joke a certain player makes in an interview or on the sideline.
But what absolutely should not happen is the crew shouldn’t be laughing at a player’s injury — especially not one to the head.
They seemed to do exactly that after Anthony Davis suffered a head injury in the Warriors-Lakers game.
Shaq and Chuck laughing at Anthony Davis being made of paper on national television is insane💀😭 pic.twitter.com/k7Q3CkElkQ
— sol 🇦🇺 (@thaboysol) May 11, 2023
In the middle of Kenny Smith’s analysis about the game, Shaq began to crumble up a piece of paper, and some fans thought he was alluding to Davis’ injury history. And then Barkley made a reference to a wheel chair after Davis was wheeled into the back because he was too woozy to walk.
Davis took a pretty bad inadvertent elbow to the head from Kevon Looney. He was eventually subbed out of the game, but he just didn’t seem to be all the way there after it.
Anthony Davis took an elbow to the face by Kevon Looney and headed to the Lakers bench 😮pic.twitter.com/DCSyQQmflb
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 11, 2023
Luckily, Davis has seemingly avoided a concussion, per Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes.
It appears that Anthony Davis has avoided a concussion, per @ChrisBHaynes pic.twitter.com/MG6d7YROdh
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) May 11, 2023
But, clearly, there’s something wrong here. Davis was moving slowly on his way into the tunnel. He also had to have a photographer turn the light off that was on him on his way out of the arena. That sounds like a pretty serious head injury and there’s nothing funny about that.
Injuries are generally always serious, but especially head injuries. We know how damaging those can be — not only in the current moment but also for the long term.
It’s just not a good look for the Inside crew to be laughing about this sort of thing. Yes, Davis’ injury history is a thing. But it’s honestly not funny — especially not in that moment.
Let’s all just hope Davis is alright and is good to go for Game 6. That’s what the crew should’ve been doing instead of messing around.
