Sometime last week, Charles Barkley joked about looking for a job on Linkedin. A few days later, on live TV with Luka Doncic, he said, “We’re going to miss you. We’re done after tonight”. These comments only fueled the year-long discussion around the NBA’s media rights deal. As per reports, NBC is the frontrunner to bag the deal & TNT is falling short. A sense of worry has taken over the NBA world, as fans don’t want to bid farewell to their favorite show. As these emotions and rumors are immense, Shaquille O’Neal recently reminisced on Draymond Green’s podcast.

On Sunday morning, Dray dropped a teaser of a new episode featuring Big Diesel. In one part of the clip, Shaq speaks about TNT and why fans love the big four. He said, “TNT said, mo********er we’ll fire your a** tomorrow, be you.” The teaser that featured this sentence was enough for many. The question arises, why did TNT threaten to fire Shaquille O’Neal? The answer lies in the latter half of the year 2011.

n July 2011, TNT announced that NBA’s Big Man would be joining Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith on the sets of Inside the NBA. Naturally, the expectation was for him to excel. However, the crew of four were off to a rocky start. Supposedly, they lacked chemistry and Shaq felt like a stranger on air. In an interview with Bleacher Report (2020), Kenny Smith opened up about the initial troubles the 4x Champ faced. He stated that Shaq was amazing in the green room. But once they went live, he “wouldn’t say the same things”. 

“So I went to him and said, ‘You don’t need to be dominant, just be you,” Smith added. The advice Smith dropped was akin to TNT’s demand from Shaq. Additionally, alongside Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Charles Barkley weighed in on Big Diesel’s first month on the job.

Shaquille O’Neal almost set himself on fire?

On the ‘All The Smoke’ podcast, the Chuckster revealed that Shaq spent much time trying to outdo himself each week on the show. He stated that the ex-Lakers star was desperate always to do something funny. But soon enough, the expertise of Ernie, Chuck, and Kenny reached Shaq’s ears. They explained to him that he shouldn’t be trying “some s**t out between each other every year.”

Barkley said, “So we’re like the joke was that we’re 5 episodes away from Shaq setting himself on fire on TV.” Individuals like the Big Diesel are always listening, learning, and evolving. A few weeks into the show, the Hall of Famer settled into his role and decided to be himself. This led to a chemistry that cannot be replicated ever again. All four of them don’t put on an act when they are live on TV and probably, in Shaq’s own words, “that’s what makes our show the best show out there.” Interestingly, you would be surprised to know there’s a pattern to the legend’s behavior on live television.

Shaq was in the news recently after he preferred SGA for the MVP title over Nikola Jokic. Many couldn’t fathom a lot of what he was saying. That’s when the legend’s former superagent, Leonard Armato, explained the ideology behind the same in an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports.

“You have to understand the brilliance of Shaq. He does this very often to motivate people. It’s not just with big men, he has done this with other athletes before and chided them to perform at a high level. It’s sort of worked, I remember him did it with Donovan Mitchell, told him to step up his game if he wanted to be a true superstar. He would do it in order to motivate.”