Some questions are best left unasked, especially on national television.
During “Inside the NBA” on Sunday, Charles Barkley asked whether former Trail Blazers, Bullets and Lakers guard Billy Ray Bates was still alive.
And that’s when it all went south fast, with co-analyst Shaquille O’Neal later saying “he passed away.”
There’s just one problem — Bates is alive.
The mayhem started after a graphic aired showing how Ty Jerome’s 28 points off the bench in Cleveland’s Game 1 ranked fourth in NBA history for reserve players, one point behind Bates’ 29 that he scored for Portland in a 1980 game against the Sonics.
“Billy Ray Bates, built like a truck,” Kenny Smith said.
“I wonder if he’s still alive. It’s a fair question,” Barkley then said before waiting a second while his co-hosts digested what he just said. “It’s a fair question.”
Bates is still alive and well at the age of 68, but Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith chided Barkley about it being insensitive to ask if someone was still alive in front of millions of people.
“(It isn’t a fair question) not unless you know the answer,” Johnson said. “You do not need to ask a question like that.”
And that’s when O’Neal provided some wrong info.
“He passed away,” O’Neal said.
With none of the hosts seemingly knowing whether O’Neal was right or wrong, the focus shifted back to Johnson and Smith scolding Barkley for asking the question.
“Have you ever heard of asking a question during a commercial break? Possibly?” Johnson said before Smith continued to dig into Barkley. “Social skills.”
Barkley then apologized for his remarks and one day later, Johnson did some further apologizing since they killed off a man who is not dead.
“We would like to issue a correction and an apology for something that happened last night on ‘Inside the NBA.’ We were talking about Billy Ray Bates, who back in 1980, had one of the NBA’s best playoff debuts coming off the bench with 29 points,” Johnson said. “In the course of our discussion, we passed on some bad information that Billy Ray Bates had passed away. While it was inadvertent, it was also inaccurate, and insensitive and inexcusable. In short, we screwed up. And we apologize to Billy Ray Bates and his family.”
Bates, 68, is just six years older than Barkley.
Bates’ big game came in a 120-110 Game 1 loss to the Supersonics.
Bates averaged 25 points per game off the bench in the series, which Seattle won in three games.
He averaged 11.7 points in his short career from 1979-83.
“Inside the NBA” is best known for its brash and unapologetic off-script style of sports talk, but they have gone too far this time.
The show is expected to move to ESPN after the 2026 season when Warner Bros. and TNT cease broadcasting basketball.
