The two shows are often compared, and it's easy to see why. They have some common themes. They're both about the drug trade. They both deal with failing institutions: law enforcement on one BB side, healthcare on the other. They both end tragically for most or all the characters.
However, they're also very different. Walter is main character and has a massive part. In the other show, McNulty is the only one who comes close to being the main character, and he isn't really. BB is about the hubris of one man, whereas TW's lesson is that organisations always win, whether the individual is good or bad. TW is ultra-naturalistic, whereas BB uses every camera trick in the book.
So, were BB creators inspired by TW, or was it not significant? Or were they even reacting against it? Did TW people (e.g. David Simon) criticise using the drug trade to tell yet another middle-aged white dude story?
I imagine that TW cast & crew might see BB as unwelcome cultural appropriation. Of course TW had a white head writer and lots of white characters, but there were a lot of black contribtors, and the white characters fit organically/believably into a majority-black cast/city. It accurately depicted police brutality and drug abuse as problems which disproportionately afflict black people.
On the other hand, BB's main focus is how clever this individual white man is, and presents it predominantly as a white story. There's some attempt to show the harm caused by drug abuse: there's a series with an extended storyline revolving around a NA circle, which depicts quite a few addicts, white and hispanic. But mostly, meth users in BB are just white, middle class idiots.
