“Let Shaq be Shaq.” These were the words of Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief content officer, Craig Barry, when he realized they weren’t using the Big Diesel properly during his early years on Inside the NBA. Shaquille O’Neal had a tough start to his career as an analyst and was at the receiving end of a lot of criticism. In fact, things got so bad that the 4x NBA Champion was close to losing his job.

Amid speculations and rumors surrounding NBA’s media rights deal and the future on Inside the NBA hanging in the balance, Shaq reminisced about his early days on the show 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 how they threatened to fire him at one stage. He said, “I wanted to be the black Bryant Gumbel and use big words. TNT said, mo********er, we’ll fire your a** tomorrow, be you.” Shaq credits this approach for the success of the show.

Now, the question arises, why did TNT threaten to fire Shaquille O’Neal? The answer lies in the latter half of the year 2011.

In 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. 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.

His early fumbles saw him refer to Spanish player Ricky Rubio as “The Italian Pete Maravich.” He also had difficulty in enunciating his speech that led to the SNL’s Kenan Thompson joking, “Oh yeah, he’s got four rings, and it sounds like they’re all stuck in his throat.” But TNT’s belief in him paid off eventually.

Last year WBD’s Craig Barry also talked about Shaq’s early struggles on the show in an interview with The U.S. Sun. “He really just wasn’t that good. If you ask him, he would tell you he was not that good.” But Barry said Inside the NBA producers realized they were not able to capitalize on Shaq’s comedic potential on the show. And then they had an accidental breakthrough.

The NBA icon famously tripped on the set during a 2015 episode of the show. “Kind of this door swung open for us, and we realized it’s not Shaq. It’s us,” Barry said. “We’re not producing him correctly. He brings a whole different physical aspect to the show. We were like, wait a second. OK, we get it. We’ll let Shaq be Shaq all over the set.”

Shaq’s chemistry with others on the set kept growing and so did the show’s popularity. In the clip shared on Instagram, he also mentioned how TNT allowed them to be their own selves. “[TNT say] ‘You guys can be yourself.’ We make fun of people, we crack jokes, we do a lot of stuff.” Shaq feels their only goal on the show is to entertain their fans since they’re going to spend time in the night watching them.

Meanwhile, Shaq’s has always tried to come up with new shenanigans on show, in an attempt to top his previous act. In his early days on the show, he was always coming up with something, which also worried his colleagues.

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 Jokić. 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,” Armato said.

The future of Inside the NBA on TNT is up in the air. TNT’s current rights contract with the NBA ends after next season and a new deal is not in place. NBA has reportedly already sold two portions of its three part media rights deal to ESPN/ABC and Amazon Prime. It has left NBC and TNT in the mix, with Comcast (NBC’s parent company) ready to outbid Warner Bros. Discovery.

Even if the show goes off air, fans will always cherish the memories it gave them and through Shaq and others, they will get more such inside stories of their favorite show.

With that said, what is your favorite TNT memory? Let us know in the comments below.