Charles Barkley had unexpected complaint about moving to ESPN

Charles Barkley was very vocal when moving to ESPN about not wanting to appear on all their programs. Now he is unhappy that the network is not working him enough.

In an appearance on “The Dan Le Batard Show” Wednesday, Barkley said his experience with ESPN has been “great,” but he voiced some frustration that the network has not made enough use of the “Inside the NBA” crew during the first half of the regular season.

“We’ve complained. We’ve only been on ESPN four times in three months,” Barkley said. “We did the first two weeks. We were off all of December until Christmas, and we’re off all of January until the 24th. I don’t like that at all.

“What I was talking about working all the time, I’m not going to do all these damn shows. I’m not going to be on ESPN 1, 2, 3, Deportes, Nacho, Echo, whatever they call it. I’m not going to be doing all that. But I wish we’d have been on more during the first half of the season.”

One can understand Barkley’s frustration. Perhaps ESPN took his warnings about not being asked to do too much literally and went easy on him for the first half of the season. What he simply seems to want is a more even distribution of broadcasts.

Barkley did note that things are about to get a lot busier for “Inside the NBA,” including three shows in the next week. They will also be on nightly during the NBA Playoffs, so the recent inactivity will definitely be short-lived.