Kenny Smith: Leaving TV for NBA front-office job is 'inevitable'

Kenny Smith might just be done with his television gig on TNT.

The longtime "Inside the NBA" studio host is insisting that with the knowledge he's obtained by working with TNT that it's "inevitable" he lands a front-office gig in the NBA, as he told Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports:

"It's inevitable from a basketball standpoint I will be moving on. The consumption and production of information that I've received, the way I'm able to relay it, and the relationships, it's inevitable. ... You're around things. You're privy to information for 20 years from runners to agents to general managers and owners that no one else has been privy to. No one else. Every team in the league has told me something they've told no one else."

Smith reportedly interviewed for head coaching vacancies with the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons in 2018 and also was offered a mentorship with Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri for a front-office role last year, so he's not totally off-base in saying he could end up in an NBA front office some day.

Smith, a two-time NBA champion, spent 10 seasons in the NBA between 1987-97. He played for the Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings, Atlanta Hawks, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic before calling it quits. He averaged 12.8 points, 5.5 assists and 2.0 rebounds per game while shooting 48 percent from the field and 39.9 percent from beyond the arc.