“C’mon Charles Stop Playin”: Shaquille O’Neal Uses an Unconventional Platform to Defend Himself from Barkley

No one knows how to get on Shaquille O Neal’s nerves better than Charles Barkley. Chuck’s shenanigans often leave the big fella red-faced, yelling the number of rings he has to validate his success and NBA legacy. During a TNT segment in 2020, Barkley had snubbed the 3x Finals MVP from his list of top-ten All-Time players. Clearly, the big fella still hasn’t gotten over the snub even after four years. Therefore, he conveyed his grievances to Barkley using an unconventional platform.

The Diesel didn’t express his feelings on his IG stories this time like he always does. Instead, Shaq took to his YouTube channel’s community tab to call out his Inside the NBA colleague.

The Lakers legend posted a meme that states, “When Charles Barkley says you’re not a Top Ten player” with the Diesel’s annoyed face underneath to convey the sentiment. The Big Aristotle captioned his post, “c’mon charle’s….stop playin.”

Shaq uses a YouTube post to go at Chuck pic.twitter.com/9IzL43mWZE

— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) May 28, 2024

This action sums up Shaq’s sensitive personality as someone who doesn’t let go of any form of disrespect. He doesn’t let anyone get away with taking shots at his legacy, especially if that person is his colleague and dear friend, Sir Charles. This is one of the major reasons why Barkley loves to push Shaq’s buttons.

On the other hand, it is no secret that Shaq enjoys the banter with the Chuckster as well. The most recent post on Shaq’s community tab is a poll on who’d people rather pick, Shaq, Barkley, or a cute puppy. The results are 56% in favor of Shaq and 37% in favor of the puppy, with Barkley getting a mere 7% of the votes at the time of writing.

However, does Barkley really believe that Shaq is not a top-ten player in NBA history or is he just pulling his friend’s leg?

Charles Barkley left Shaquille O’Neal perplexed

In June 2020, during an Inside the NBA segment, Charles Barkley rolled out his All-Time top-ten list and put Kobe Bryant over Shaquille O’Neal. To make matters worse, he didn’t even put Shaq at #11. His co-host Kenny Smith was also shocked at the omission and accused the 1993 MVP of understating O’Neal’s contribution. He then asked Chuck, “When have you ever seen anyone like Shaq?”

Barkley acknowledged that he had never seen a force like Shaq in his life but still held on to the belief that he is somewhere around 11-13th position in the All-Time rankings. Three years after the snub, the 4x NBA champion found a way to get back at the Suns legend. When Kevin Durant passed Hakeem Olajuwon in the All-Time Scoring list, he remarked that Chuck is “all the way down” to the 29th position on the list. 

Thus, the back-and-forth between the two eminent personalities has been nonstop entertainment for fans and Shaq is still sulking over Barkley’s Top-Ten list. Such lists are bound to create tensions considering the prolific history of NBA superstars. However, Shaq’s claim as a top-ten player does have a lot of merit.