“Shaquille O’Neal wouldn’t even get playing time in today’s NBA”: When Charles Barkley insulted the Lakers legend to his face on NBAonTNT

Charles Barkley hilariously went at Shaquille O’Neal yet again when he told him that he wouldn’t make it to the floor in today’s NBA. 

Over the 10+ years that Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have co-hosted NBAonTNT together, not much has changed between the two of them and the dynamic they share with one another. From the get-go, the two NBA legends were at each other’s necks and knee-deep in gut-wrenching roasts and insults. 

Both Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have admitted that they are friends when the cameras are off so speculation over whether they hate each when the show wraps up every night shouldn’t really be a thing. However, their friendship doesn’t stop them from threatening each other on national television while also getting a bit too personal.

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Chuck tends to go after Shaq’s smarts and how he simply doesn’t know the game of basketball while the latter constantly tells the Suns legend that he doesn’t have any rings so he can’t talk to him about ‘playing championship caliber basketball’. 

Charles Barkley says that Shaquille O’Neal wouldn’t have seen the floor in this era of the NBA. 

It’s no secret that the league has shifted to a perimeter-oriented type offense in the past 8 years or so. This has caused big-men like Karl Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, and more to space the floor all the way out to the arc. Guys who played inside like Shaquille O’Neal aren’t all too common nowadays. 

Charles Barkley used this drastic change in offensive schematics on NBAonTNT to argue that Shaq wouldn’t have even seen the floor in today’s NBA.

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Shaquille O’Neal himself, has said that he’s already playing in today’s NBA in the form of Giannis Antetokounmpo and quite frankly, the ‘Big Aristotle’ isn’t wrong. The Bucks FMVP is the most dominant force (besides a prime LeBron James) since O’Neal’s Lakers days. 

Giannis won two MVPs and a title without ever making more than 90 3s in a whole season. So, given how strong and athletic prime Shaq was, he would have no problem slightly adjusting to today’s league and being the same, dominant Shaquille O’Neal that fans witnessed in the 90s and 2000s.