Back in 2014, Kenny Smith ended up pushing Shaquille O’Neal into a Christmas tree and called it playing along Shaq’s “practical jokes”.
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Shaquille O’Neal was a dominant beast on the hardwood during his playing days, however, the 7-foot big man was always a fan of fooling around and pulling pranks on people.
Even after his retirement, on the sets of TNT’s “Inside the NBA”, The Big Aristotle loves joking along with his co-stars Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith.
This one time, O’Neal’s joke backfired and would end up hurting him.
During Christmas time in 2014, for whatever reason, the former Lakers legend and “The Jet” were racing to the big board from their desks. While running, the former Rockets guard ended up shoving the 4-time NBA champ into the tree.
Here, have a look at the incident.
Also Read: Shaquille O’Neal flexed his LSU Pell grant money as $1 dollar bills around campus
“Shaquille O’Neal gets up and says that we’re gonna go viral”: Kenny Smith
Back in 2015, during an appearance on “Conan on TBS“, Smith spoke about the incident and revealed the reason behind the push. Saying that he merely played along Shaq’s “practical joke”, the 2-time champ recollected:
“Shaq likes to do practical jokes. So he was like ‘hey Kenny, I think it would be funny if you kind of like, you know’… when you run to the big board and you describe what’s plays going on, have this huge board behind me.
He says ‘I’ll run behind you and then we kind of race and we try to like bump into each other’. So I’m like wait a minute, he’s like 340. If he bumps into me, I’m gonna just be flying the other way. So I said, I got a trick for him. So this was the trick.
He doesn’t even get mad. He gets up and goes ‘I think we’re gonna go viral’.”
The ‘NBA on TNT‘ crew has always had a great time on the set. With their nonstop pranks, we are assured to get a good laugh.
Also Read: Charles Barkley proved his greatness by forcing the NBA to change a rule, according to Kenny Smith
