The idea and in-game backstory for Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden was originally inspired by an ambiguous sentence on the Wikipedia article for American basketball player Michael Jordan. According to the game's co-creator Brian Raum:


In response to this question, the developers decided that the game would act as a sequel both to that movie and to the game Barkley: Shut Up and Jam!, despite at least one of the other co-creators never having played the original game.