Is Stephen A. Smith going to crash the ‘Inside the NBA’ party at ESPN?

Ever since news broke earlier this week that ESPN and ABC would air the iconic Inside the NBA studio show on its platforms beginning in the 2025-26 season, basketball fans have wondered whether The Worldwide Leader would tinker with the show.
Would they add Stephen A. Smith to the crew that features Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith? Would they change the format? Would they mess with perfection?
On this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast, ESPN President Burke Magnus answered the question.
“Of course we’re not going to change the show,” Magnus said. “Why would we take something so successful and so iconic, bring it over and then be like, ‘We know better, we’re gonna change it.’”
What about bringing in Stephen A.?
“We don’t want to change it,” Magnus said. “We don’t want to interject new talent into it. We don’t want to really do anything to it.”
TNT Sports will continue to independently produce Inside the NBA from its Atlanta-based studios over the 11-year term of the agreement.
“They’re going to produce it, and that’s exactly what we want,” Magnus said on the podcast.
The legendary Inside the NBA studio team will appear on ESPN and ABC surrounding high-profile live events, including ESPN’s pregame, halftime and postgame coverage of the NBA Finals on ABC, Conference Finals, NBA Playoffs, all ABC games after January 1, Christmas Day, opening week, the final week of the season and other marquee live events.
“They’ll do the NBA Final,” said Magnus. “They’ll do a Conference Final, which is part of a new rights agreement. They’ll do pretty much the entire playoff run. And then they’ll do primarily during the regular season, the Saturday night and/or Sunday afternoon window on ABC.
“And then there’s a mechanism for some select games on ESPN. Opening Night, a tentpole regular-season game that happens to fall in November or December. For example, if we had had Boston-Cleveland Tuesday night, that would’ve been a perfect way to activate for that game for ESPN. And then Christmas Day and that sort of thing.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called the news “a huge win for basketball fans.”
“The opportunity to continue the iconic and Emmy Award-winning Inside the NBA is a huge win for basketball fans everywhere,” Silver said in a statement. “We look forward to building on our longstanding partnership with TNT Sports and working together to promote NBA content across key WBD and NBA platforms.”
Magnus said ESPN’s NBA Countdown show featuring Malika Andrews, Kendrick Perkins, Brian Windhorst and others would remain intact.
“NBA Countdown will be the studio show around all the other windows,” Magnus told SI. “A ton of opportunities for that show to continue and it will.”
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.