#TNT actually hired Kobe Bryant for ‘Inside the NBA’

Charles Barkley dropped a sports media bombshell.

Barkley appeared on the “Draymond Green Show” on Volume Sports and revealed that Kobe Bryant had signed a deal with TNT at one point.

“Not many people know this and I’m probably going to get in trouble for telling you this, but we actually hired Kobe Bryant,” Barkley said.

Barkley said that the late Lakers great had agreed to work with Turner Sports but “didn’t want to do all the other bulls–t” – i.e. participating in PR junkets and doing radio interviews, etc. – that came with the gig.

“He actually signed with us, but when we started telling him [about doing outside interviews] he was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to do any of that stuff,” Barkley said.

Bryant did some media work for ESPN, producing the “Detail” basketball film study program for the then-fledgling ESPN+ streaming service.

Barkley said there were probably only 10 people in the world who knew that Bryant had signed with Turner Sports prior to his passing.

This segment opens up myriad possibilities as to what Bryant’s role could have been. Logic would suggest that he would not have been on the main “Inside the NBA” desk alongside Ernie Johnson, Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal.