The Josh Innes Show - Barkley Rips NBA Cup

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

As we spoke about in a previous episode, the NBA Cup is mostly stupid. But, if it works, you have to continue. My question would be, does it actually work? Do fans actually care more? What does the fan actually get from this? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. All right, let's see here. So I talked earlier about the NBA Cup and how you need to start relegating teams to add incentive to play harder. And look, I am fully aware that it sounds ridiculous to say you need to pay guys more money to incentivize winning games like this NBA Cup, which at its core and at my core, I find the concept of the NBA Cup to be preposterous because we are having to pay dudes who are already rich more money to incentivize them playing hard. but I also understand the reality of the universe

and these NBA guys don't want to play all these games and they don't play hard in all the games. But Charles Barkley had some thoughts on this. Let's play a couple commercials and then we'll hear from Chuck. At Fandual Casino, you get even more ways to play. Dive into new and exciting games and all of your favorite casino classics, like slots, table games, and arcade games.

Get more on Fandual Casino. Download the app today. Please play responsibly 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerned about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. When you're flying Emirates business class, enjoying a good night's rest in your lie flat seat. You'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better.

All right. So Charles Barkley was on with Tom Tolbert on his show. I don't know if he's just got a podcast or radio show based on the fact that the video I'm seeing is of Tom Tolbert sitting in his backyard. I'm going to assume that this is a podcast. So Charles Barkley with thoughts on the NBA Cup. People love elimination stuff. So they're going to watch it. But I don't like, I still think that you get rid of that. They won't. But what are your thoughts on those two? things well number one I think the cup thing is somewhat embarrassing what I mean by that is I'm dis by the way fucking Chuck looks fucking thin as hell on his Ozzympic way to go but I need to

catch up I think I drink too much beer like somehow I drink so much beer that it offsets the Mongero they're like nope like the Mongero's made up its mind like brother you drink too much beer therefore we quit we give up pointed in my players that we're having number one god bless them for making money okay

i'm disappointed that we have to make a in-season tournament to make these guys more money so they won't do load management yeah um so these guys god bless them making a lot of money i'd never begrudged them because i made i don't know i ain't making what they're making but I made a great living. See, and again, I'll continue this. And I agree with everything he's saying. Everything he says makes sense, correct? Everything he says, I'm like, totally.

Like, it's ridiculous that you have to pay guys who are already millionaires. You have to pay them more money to incentivize playing hard. But it is the way of the current NBA landscape. And arguably, it's the way of all the sports world, especially sports where there are tons of games. In football, you don't have to pay guys extra money to play hard because they're 17 games and every game matters. In hockey, you don't have to pay them to play hard because hockey players play hard no matter what because they're a different breed. But when you're talking baseball and you're talking basketball where there are tons of games and not every

game matters, you have a hard time getting dudes to get up and want to play these games. So you bribe them early in the season with dangling $500,000 over their heads. It's ridiculous and I agree. But it's the only way to get them to play hard. But to have to pay these guys extra money to make them play other games, they should play basketball because they're well compensated

to play basketball. To do an in-season tournament to make them extra money, come on, man. That's a little bit ridiculous. Now, the playing thing is actually kind of flip for me.

Well, before he gets into that, I am curious to see what he says about the play-in. Because I think the play-ins actually a good thing. Like, I like that they add that element to it. But as far as paying guys extra money, like, there's a lot of things that, like, you do that you think are ridiculous, but they kind of have to be done, right? Like, that's kind of how it has to be. Like, like, I think it's ridiculous that, like, I, let me try to find a good example for this. There are things that you have to do that on the surface, it's preposterous that you have to do them. but they kind of have to be done because that's the current way of the world, right?

Like, I'll give you an example, right? We have all these people that call to try to win prizes on the radio. There are some people who legitimately really want to win a prize and they're turned on by that particular prize. And there's a lot of people who we would call prize pigs. What are prize pigs? Prize pigs are people that literally, I don't think, give two fucks what you're talking about on the radio.

All they care about is winning prizes. They go from station to station. There are Facebook groups dedicated to. these people. They don't help your station at all. They don't care about your station at all. They're just there to win whatever you're given away. It could be a car. It could be a brown paper bag filled with

dog shit. They don't care. They just want to win shit. And I was talking to some people about this and they're like, well, you can't be mean to those people because what if they, we catch fire with one of these people and they decide to keep listening and that's how our ratings come. I'm like, well, that's fucking preposterous.

And they're like, well, you've got to be nice to them. Or it's like this. There are certain things to the point of having to do that it's preposterous that we have to do them, but you have to do it. A better example maybe is people talk shit online about me all the time on the station Facebook page all the time. And I'm like, well, why can't I go back at them and tell them that they're pieces of shit? And they're like, you can't. You've got to shake their hand and try to be and try to turn them is what my boss will say. I'm like, I don't want to try to turn them.

They're literally calling me horrible names. and they think I'm a piece of shit. Why do I need to go out and pat them on the back and try to convince them to like what I'm doing? Because I'm not a bad guy, but they think I'm a bad guy. Well, you've got to do that because you've got to try to turn everybody. And it's preposterous that I have to do that. But to a degree, I have to do that because I'm at the mercy of these people trying to get ratings. In the same way with basketball, it's preposterous that you have to take people who are already making millions of dollars

and make them play harder by giving them more money to play harder to end. incentivize playing harder. It is preposterous. It is 100% preposterous. He is not wrong. But if that's what you have to do, and if the results show that the numbers go up and the people are more interested, and I don't know if that's true or not. I'm sure there was a nice crowd for that game in Vegas, and I'm sure that'll be the next place they expand if they ever have an expansion in the NBA. There's no doubt they'll go to Vegas. I'm sure there were a ton of people there for that because in Vegas, you're not getting an NBA high-level NBA game ever because they don't have a team. So, of course, people showed up for it. So I don't know that a sold-out crowd for that

game proves anything. But like, let's say your numbers go up. Let's say that the fan interaction is better. Let's say revenue goes up because of this. You've got a proof of concept now. If it works and people are doing it, then of course you'd be dumb to not keep doing this. I don't know that it actually matters. I don't know that fans care more. Like, do I think a fan, and this is who you do this for, fans, right? I don't know that a fan cares more about his team winning the NBA Cup or not. Like, I'm here in Detroit. The Pistons are the number one team in the East right now.

They got bounced early from the NBA Cup or a non-factor. I didn't hear anybody in Detroit like, holy shit, what a downer. We got bounced from the NBA Cup. Nobody cared. And at the end of the day, what matters? What matters is the fans and whether or not they consume it and like it more. I don't know that there's some fan out there that's a fan of the Knicks who haven't won an NBA championship since the 70.

who are like, holy shit, we won the NBA Cup. Like, I don't know that they gave a shit. Spike Lee gave a shit. Other than that, who really gives a shit that they won that? And that's who you do these things for. Your consumer. You have to entertain your consumer. I'd like to see data

and I want to see whether or not there's a true, tangible piece of evidence or multiple pieces of evidence or proof that the NBA Cup draws more interest from the fans. Like, sure, these guys are playing harder because they're out there to make $500,000. Hey, how about this? You want to get fans interested? How about everybody that

signs up for something for this team that they're a fan of? If their team wins the NBA Cup, they get a free ticket to a game or they get a free t-shirt. Then at least the fans get something. My biggest issue is the fans are truly not getting anything from this. Oh, wow, your guys who are already making millions of dollars are now playing harder because they're getting paid more money? And what do I get as a fan? Two games of you playing fucking hard and then back to the normal load management shit? Like, what are you? am I getting out of this? Like, as a fan, as a consumer of the sport, what am I getting? Send me, hey, how about you get me behind my team and say, hey, if you win, you get a free pair

of tickets to any game you'd like to go to or select game in the future? Or you will send you a t-shirt or anything. But you know what you get? You get the opportunity to probably buy an NBA Cup championship t-shirt. Anyway, let's hear more from Charles. It's been really exciting. It's been really, I thought it was stupid in the beginning because why don't we just let everybody in the damn playoffs what basically is what we're doing now but it's been pretty exciting uh and listen we're doing it like we do everything in sports for money um yeah of course uh but it's kind of it's been exciting i got to give i i think i gave adam some flowers for that last year and obviously it helps our

network. So the ratings have been great. The gains have been pretty exciting. But I think I just think it's embarrassing that we paying guys 50, 60, 70 million dollars. And they don't want to play back to, they don't want to play basketball four days a week. I says, man, we're the luckiest dudes in the world. And I'm a stupid ass basketball. I'm with him 100%. The most money I'm that viewpoint. That's good. I can live with that. But, again, there are a lot of things that are ridiculous. But if they work for you, then you have to keep doing them. And I have no proof. I have zero proof that anybody actually cares about the NBA Cup other than the guys who are out there making money. I don't know that that exists. Like, here's a Tony Kornheiser opinion.

I don't even think it's on real TV. I think it's on streaming TV. And I'm not getting streaming TV just to watch this game about the NBA Cup. He's not wrong. I don't believe the NBA Cup is drawing in new viewers because what does the fan get? In reality, it's actually more insulting to the fan that it takes you making more money to play hard. Me buying the ticket, me spending my hard-earned money on you so I can watch you play basketball isn't enough for me to guarantee that you're going to play a back-to-back

or that you're not going to have load management, but because you can make an extra $500,000 you're playing hard. It's actually insulting to the fan. so Charles isn't wrong it is legitimately an insult but if you see that the numbers are up and you see that more people are engaged do you keep doing it they're not going to stop doing it because obviously there's a financial benefit for them but like I don't talk to a human that gives a shit if your team won the NBA Cup LeBron cares if you win the NBA Cup what fan in Houston Philadelphia Detroit wherever is sitting around today going damn I'm really upset that we got bounced from the NBA Cup boy it sure is a shame that Jay Green isn't going to have the opportunity to win that cold hard cash at the end of it. That's the biggest problem I have is the only true beneficiaries of this are the players and the league. The fan isn't really getting anything special.

The fan's actually getting kicked in the balls because you're telling them that most of the time we don't try, but now we do try because there's more money in it for us and there's nothing in it for you. That's the insult. Anyway, more to come.