Last month, NBA fans rejoiced after finding out that the legendary Inside the NBA studio show would survive past this season, despite TNT losing its right to air games.

The licensing deal struck between TNT and ESPN seemingly solved issues for both networks. ESPN would get to air the best studio show in the NBA after struggling to find something that worked on their own. TNT would retain some ancillary NBA rights for its digital properties and get a few Big 12 football and basketball games from ESPN to boot. And NBA fans could breath easy knowing Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson aren’t going anywhere.

But almost a month on from the initial announcement, some prominent media figures aren’t so sure that the transition will be as smooth as it seems.

Last month, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons suggested that both Barkley and Smith could still opt-out of their TNT contracts, which would force the network to renegotiate from a position with little leverage. Likewise, Sports Illustrated‘s Jimmy Traina reported that Shaq’s contract is up following this season, making him a free agent.

And now, media observers are taking notice of how mum the cast of Inside has been about the whole situation since the November announcement.

Discussing the situation on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast, the aforementioned Traina and The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis speculated on whether there will be some roadblocks before next season.

“Something feels off about this whole thing to me,” Traina premised. “I don’t know what it is. I thought we’d hear more and see more maybe from Ernie and Shaq and Kenny and Chuck about this. They really haven’t publicly- I mean, there’s been little shots that Charles has taken.”

Traina’s referencing one-off comments from Barkley, like on Tuesday when he joked on-air about TNT selling the show. Otherwise, the cast has been tight lipped about the impending move. One obvious reason for that would be the uncertainty around their contracts.

“I have a vibe that something is off,” Traina continued. “Am I crazy?”

“I think it’s a possibility because this seemed like too elegant a solution for everybody,” Curtis responded. “Okay. We have this show. We want this show to survive in-tact on another network. But Turner kind of owns this show, and has this contract with Barkley — whatever that’s worth. ‘Oh, here’s how we solve it. We license the show to ESPN which has had all kinds of problems with the NBA and they put it on.’ So that was very elegant.

“Also, it basically ended what everybody, including you and me, thought was going to be an inevitable Charles Barkley free agent period. No matter what he says, he was looking forward to that. He loves it. …He loves being in that role where everybody wants to get him.

“So now all of the sudden Turner makes a deal and we hear Barkley go, ‘Well we didn’t really know about this,’ or, ‘We weren’t really kept in the loop on this.’ How is that possible?” Curtis questioned.

It smells like TNT, ESPN, and the NBA jumped the gun on this announcement, forgetting to include the four most important people involved: the cast of Inside the NBA. Now, TNT will have to find a way to make sure no one decides to jump ship. That solution seems pretty simple, pay the cast more money.

But if the tea leaves are being read correctly, it seems like the Inside the NBA saga is far from over.

[SI Media with Jimmy Traina]