Despite being rivals on the basketball court during their playing days, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal now share a brother-like bond. At one point, the two would get into scuffles pretty often. But that would all change once their mothers got involved in the situation and engineered a truce. Subsequently, their friendship grew stronger when the two Hall-Of-Famers joined the Inside the NBA crew as analysts. After more than 12 years of working together at NBA on TNT, Shaq and Chuck have developed a beautiful bond. This bond of theirs allows them to roast each other constantly and engage in merciless banter. Their running jokes circle around Shaq being overweight and Barkley being ‘ringless’. However, this one time, Barkley dissed the Lakers legend live on air for simply knowing how to read.
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Inside the NBA is one of the funniest and most entertaining basketball shows in television. Apart from legends giving their insights on the game, the TNT show also provides viewers with several hilarious moments. A few years ago, the crew got Charles Barkley to call himself a “dumba**’ on live TV. The Round Mound of Rebound was asked to read an announcement from the teleprompter. However, the producers decided to sneak in the line ‘I’m a dumba**’ in between to trick the Chuckster. Barkley walked right into the trap, prompting the whole room to erupt in laughter.
Despite often being on the receiving end of these constant pranks, Barkley is a good sport and always takes these jabs well. However, in a few instances, Barkley’s own actions made him the butt of the jokes.
Charles Barkley fails to read out of a prompter, moments after trolling Shaquille O’Neal
A few years ago, Shaq did a seamless job of reading a promotional message out of the teleprompter on the TNT studio. Right after the Diesel completed the task, Ernie Johnson and Kenny “The Jet” Smith praised him for doing a good job. Seeing the crew shower the big man with applause, Barkley seemed baffled. He couldn’t fathom the fact that his co-hosts were lauding Shaq for knowing how to read. Barkley said, “Timeout. Y’all giving him credit for knowing how to read?”
Therefore, the crew went on to challenge the Chuckster to do the exact same thing. Struggling to get past the first line itself, Chuck made a fool out of himself. And eventually, he had to give up and eat his words. Have a look at the clip of the incident posted by charles.barkley.fanpage.
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Sharing this hilarious moment with his 31 million followers, the “Superman” recently posted this reel on his Instagram story. Have a look at the screenshot tweeted out by tragicpatek.
Shaq shares Chuck’s inability to read pic.twitter.com/MajRUPQnaA
— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) June 19, 2023
We cannot wait for the offseason to get over and see the TNT guys get back at it again.
Shaq and Chuck are set to earn $10 million per year being TNT analysts
At the beginning of the 2022-2023 season, TNT announced that all four hosts of the show have signed long-term contract extensions. Committing to the network for the foreseeable future, Barkley released a statement expressing his gratitude:
“We’re all a big family. Ernie, Kenny and Shaquille are brothers to me, and I wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for them and all the amazing people who work on our show. I’m not gonna lie, though, this is a life-altering deal…and I’m blessed to be able to do live television for a living.”
According to reports, Charles and Shaq are set to earn $10 million each year. Keeping in mind that they’ve signed 10-year deals, the Hall-Of-Fame duo will be gathering upwards of $100 million each.
