Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal are peak television. For 12 years now, they’ve been the reason TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ has been the most loved show in the history of sports television. However, while the two are quite comfortable with each other now, their relationship had somewhat of a rocky start. During his appearance on the ‘New Heights’ podcast with the Kelce brothers, Barkley couldn’t help but divulge the hilarious details as to why that was.
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Shaq has been with TNT ever since his retirement from the NBA in 2011. And because of his reputation as one of the funniest personalities on television, along side his basketball expertise, the Big Diesel is currently on an incredible $100,000,000 contract.
But while Shaq may be naturally funny now, back in the day, he tried too hard to entertain the audience. In fact, Barkley recently revealed, everybody on the set of Inside the NBA were once worried that he’d soon become a ‘fire hazard’ on the TNT studio.
Charles Barkley and the Inside crew believed that Shaquille O’Neal would set himself on fire
Charles Barkley may troll Shaquille O’Neal the most, but he also deeply cares about his fellow panelist and dear friend. On several occasions, he has spoken about how worried he was for the Lakers legend at different points in time. However, Barkley recently joked on the ‘New Heights’ podcast how he and the TNT crew had to ‘worry’ about Shaq being a ‘fire hazard’ at the very beginning of his journey with TNT. Here is what he said.
“Probably been with Shaq for like 10 years, somewhere in that range. The only thing that was funny with Shaq, when Shaq first got the job, he tried do something funny like every night. And we’re like ‘Yo man. You know we got like 6 more months of this sh*t, right?’. And then the producer had to say, ‘Shaq, we don’t have to outdo ourselves every night’. He says ‘Oh, what you mean?’
He[the producer then] says, ‘Shaq, it’s just October, we’re going to be here till June’. And then, the joke around the studio was that we were about a month away from Shaq setting himself on fire, because every week, he was like ‘let me do this, this week’. We were like he’s young, he’s new. And then we realized, no, he’s going to try to do something crazy every night.”
That certainly sounds exactly like a certain behemoth of a man NBA fans have come to know and love. But as scared as Shaq made the Chuckster in the past, the two have built a heartwarming relationship over the years despite a few tiffs here and there.
Shaq and Chuck’s relationship
Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are now two dear friends who openly talk about their love for one another and their families. Sure, they still roast each other at every possible opportunity, especially on live television. However, they care deeply about each other’s well being and have often expressed their gratitude for having each other as friends in their lives.
Recently, before going on a hiatus after covering Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Shaq shared some touching words about Barkley on NBA TV. The Big Diesel shared how their mothers had a close friendship as well. And how the two families have shared a close bond with each other over the years.
