By the time this week’s The Big Podcast rolled around, Kevin Durant had clapped back at Stephen A. Smith. (And called out Charles Barkley while he was at it too.) But Shaquille O’Neal put aside his frenemy relationship with his ESPN counterpart to call him out too. Baron Davis, a fellow TNT analyst, did balance the scales, however, O’Neal has always maintained a similar stance to what KD said. And he knows a good portion of the NBA community would agree with him and the Suns star.

When Adam Lefkoe asked the NBA players-turned-TNT analysts, “How many people do you think in the NBA feel the same way KD does about Stephen A.?” Shaq says, “Give me a percentage,” and Davis says more than once, “Somewhere in the 80%.”

Similar to what Charles Barkley did at the 2024 All-Star Weekend, Stephen A. Smith claimed that the Suns aren’t title contenders because of Durant’s leadership issues. While previously, KD was more diplomatic about Chuck, about Smith he said, “Yeah, Stephen A., I don’t understand how people even listen to Stephen A..” The statement that resonates with Shaq is, “I’ve been in the league for 18 years. I’ve never seen Stephen A. at a practice, or a film session, or a shoot-around. I’ve never seen him anywhere but on TV talking (expletive) about players.”

Bringing back his self-invented ‘G-14 classification’ talk again, Shaq said, “Kevin Durant is probably similar to my situation. When we’ve been there and done that, give us our respect. That’s all we want.” He deems KD one of the greatest players in the league and claims it doesn’t matter how he got there as long as he gets the respect he deserves.

But Shaq’s now on the other side of the mic too, as an NBA analyst. And he, with the Inside Guys, isn’t above some tough commentary on players. So he and Baron Davis can pinpoint why Smith is not liked by NBA pros. While Davis says, “He been a hater his whole career,” Shaq phrases it differently. “I call it challenging people.” The way Shaq has ‘challenged’ Dwight Howard and Rudy Gobert?

Shaq knows he and his colleagues are not in likable positions

Recently, other comments made by Stephen A. Smith overshadowed his beef with Kevin Durant. He ‘half-joked’ he’d run for the presidency “If you came to me and you told me I had a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States of America.” Going by Shaquille O’Neal and Baron Davis’ estimates, he’d not get 80% of the NBA community’s votes, so he might have to pull the plug on that for now.

At the end of the day, though, Shaq is as much Smith’s buddy as he admires KD. The 4x NBA champion tells Davis that analysts like Smith still question his resume. However, they both see Smith’s fiery comments more as a “motivator” to prove him wrong.

“This is their job, our job,” Shaq reiterates as an NBA analyst. And he knows it’s not a very likable job.