Wednesday night may have been Inside the NBA’s final show from studio J on TNT, and they had a very bizarre way of celebrating the occasion.
Baby oil. They celebrated with a picture of baby oil.
ESPN will air Game 6 between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics Friday night. If the Knicks lose, there will be a Game 7 on TNT Monday night and Inside the NBA will be back in Studio J. But if the Knicks win the game and the series Friday night, it’s onto the Eastern Conference Finals, where Inside the NBA will hit the road to broadcast on site.
The NBA on TNT will conclude after the Eastern Conference Finals. And although Inside the NBA will air on ESPN through a licensing agreement with TNT, they apparently won’t be doing the show from Studio J.
What’s with the baby oil? 😬 pic.twitter.com/40B8Why001
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 15, 2025
“This may have been our last night in Studio J,” Ernie Johnson noted as they signed off the show while their ‘Gone Fishing’ yacht was in the background.
“Forever!” Barkley chimed in. “This will be our last show, oh that will be sad…it won’t be the same without the studio.”
And with that, TNT put a graphic of Johnson’s baby oil on the screen, leaving it there for about seven seconds to garner a laugh out of Shaquille O’Neal and Barkley. Kenny Smith and Johnson, however, seemed less entertained.
“Come on, man,” Smith said with a stern look. “This is not funny. Not funny.”
“And the yacht goes silent,” Johnson said.
Baby oil gained a lot of attention last September, when 1,000 bottles of the product were found at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ New York home after he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking. And baby oil was in the news again this week as Combs’ trial began in New York.
Maybe Inside the NBA’s baby oil graphic had nothing to do with the Diddy trial. But with baby oil in the news, putting the picture on the screen for Shaq and Barkley to laugh at seems like a potentially slippery slope.
