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Charles Barkley Gets Most Reluctant Champagne Shower Ever For Inside The NBA’s Sports Emmy

The Sports Emmys were handed out yesterday, and TNT’s Inside the NBA was one of the big winners, taking top honors in the weekly studio show category. You know, I tried to come up with some segues here and it’s just not happening. So instead, I’ll say: below is the video of Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley reacting to that win, along with a “celebration” that doubled as an excuse to rip on Barkley for never winning a championship as a player (Smith, of course, won two with the Rockets) – and really, just an excuse to torment Barkley in general:

And that right there is why Inside the NBA is as popular as it is: relentless ball-busting along with ridiculous visual gags like Barkley getting champagne poured on him and looking like he’s enduring a form of torture. And the graphics were aggressively weird: oh, Barkley Photoshopped in next to a bunch of other people who had to wait a long time to win championships/major awards? We’ll see that and raise you an Emmy with Barkley’s face Photoshopped onto it. As for the slo-mo replay of Smith pouring the champagne all over a miserable Barkley: gold.

Barkley’s mentioned before that his Inside the NBA gig – a job where he gets paid to sit and talk about basketball – feels like stealing to him. Well, last night, as his eyes burned from the champagne, he probably felt like he’d truly earned that money. Oh, and something tells us the Sports Emmy doesn’t quite make up for never winning an NBA title.

Video by CJ Fogler.