‘Hakeem Olajuwon Did That’: Charles Barkley Roasts Shaquille O’Neal for Having His Confidence Stripped Away by Rockets Legend

Charles Barkley never misses a chance to take shots at Shaquille O’Neal when they’re on the sets of Inside the NBA. During a segment on the show, Barkley roasted Shaq once again bringing up Hakeem Olajuwon’s dominance against his Orlando Magic.

While discussing whether a coach can give confidence to their players through their actions, Shaq declared that they can’t. He believes that a player either has those qualities inherently or they don’t, so being stripped away of their confidence isn’t a real thing.

Shaq said, “Coaching and instructing somebody to do it and giving somebody confidence is two different things. Can’t no coach give me or take away my confidence. That’s all I am saying.”

This is where Barkley found enough room to slip in a quick jab on his good friend. While Shaq was trying to continue, the Chuckster quickly said, “Well, Hakeem did that [took away your confidence].”

“No, he didn’t,” Shaq tried to respond, but the damage was already done. Kenny Smith started laughing immediately as Ernie Johnson tried to bring down the volume a notch.

Chuck was referring to the 1995 NBA Finals between the Houston Rockets led by Olajuwon and Shaq’s Orlando Magic.

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The Magic were thrashed by the Rockets in a clean sweep. To be fair here for Shaq, Olajuwon wasn’t a coach in that matchup so he couldn’t have taken away Shaq’s confidence as a coach. But Barkley definitely won that round.

Shaq has addressed the 0-4 loss of 1995 on several occasions. He believes that he lacked the maturity to understand just how serious the battle was.

Shaq didn’t take the Rockets battle seriously

Shaq was only in his third year when he led the Magic to the NBA Finals. So it’s pretty understandable that the Magic star didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. The big fella addressed the topic recently on Udonis Haslem’s The OGs podcast,

“We get to the Finals one year in Orlando, and we had 10 days off. My leadership wasn’t intact then. Me and D. Scott, we’re in Atlanta, we’re in Miami, and then by day five, we come back and try to practice.”

Shaq also stated that Olajuwon was better than him at that point and that the past Finals experience ended up being beneficial for him in the series.

“Hakeem was way better than me, but he never did to me in the regular season what he did in the Finals. So, I learned that when you get to that level, you’ve got to step it up a notch—I didn’t know that at the time.”

He did learn his lessons because Shaq ended his career with four titles, including a three-peat.