He shoots from the lip and scores

Barkley, above all else, is someone who will say whatever occurs to him when it occurs to him, whether or not he's on the air.

To wit:

Talking during a game recently about a free throw missed at a crucial time by a high-percentage free-throw shooter, he said: "That 90% doesn't mean nothing when you have a tight sphincter."

Talking about a bad team: "The Nets are like the Democrats . . . they don't win even though the rest of the division sucks."

Talking about whether New York Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas' job is safe: "He's about as safe as me in a room full of cookies. If I'm in a room full of cookies, the cookies ain't got no damn chance."

Ernie Johnson recalls that the first time Barkley appeared on the show, in 2000, Barkley asked Smith during a break what he was going to talk about during the next segment. Johnson recalled, "Kenny said, 'You'll find out.' "

This was perfect, said Kiely the producer. Kiely's notion was to have a show that was spontaneous, dynamic, like an overheard conversation. His ideal was closer to the PBS political shout-fest "The McLaughlin Group" than to conventional television sports post- and pregame analysis.

Barkley was more than accommodating. That first year, he accused the league of giving TNT all the bad games: "NBC gets all the good games. We get the Little Sisters of the Poor." He said he could beat the Detroit Pistons with a team of studio technicians. He said All-Star Grant Hill's ears were too big. He delivered these comments and many, many more in a voice that ranged between a bray and a sonic boom.

His weight became a recurring subject of conversation. By NBA standards, he is not tall; he's slightly more than 6 feet 4 inches, yet he carries more than 300 pounds, much of it in a backside that his wife, Maureen, once said was "the size of New Jersey."

To simply call Barkley fat, however, is to disregard the physical power at his command. As a player, he was the shortest man ever to lead the league in rebounding, a skill derived more from desire and ferocity than height.

"If you want to be a rebounder you have to approach it like, 'Let's just beat the hell out of each other all night.' It's all you've got," Barkley said.

Barkley's ferocity notwithstanding, the show treated him like a pinata. A computer graphics guy routinely placed Barkley's big, round, shaven head on top of ridiculously mismatched bodies, which the show's director then played on air almost endlessly.