With someone as unfiltered, unrestricted, and out-of-pocket as Charles Barkley, this was going to happen. Yet Chuck’s perfectly timed joke left Studio J in shambles. Kenny “The Jet” Smith was stuttering. Ernie Johnson tried to change the subject. Shaquille O’Neal straight-up left the set. The last one was not another trigger to ‘Mr. Sensitive’ when he walked off in a sulk. Much like the time, Chuckster apologized to Beyonce’s mom for making fun of her hometown. His very subtle joke had devastating effects on his colleagues.

It started with a debate on the ‘Is it real, is it not’ Duel in the Dust scheduled with Stephen A. Smith. ICYMI, ESPN, and TNT will once again cover the NBA Cup semis and finals together. With SAS on their turf, the crew is trying to orchestrate a free throw matchoff between the two Smiths – Kenny and Stephen. But the 2x NBA champion claims he’s too good to compete with the former college star.

He wanted to give an analogy to support that, but it started off wrong with, “You think Jay-Z or…” Before he could complete that thought, Charles Barkley tapped his arm and said, “Probably not a good time right now.” Can we get a ‘too soon, Chuck’ here?

That one comment on the side broke the big guy on the farthest end. Shaquille O’Neal had to get up, walk away, and hide out of the camera view to compose himself. For seconds, you could only see Shaq’s massive head shaking.

The others at the table were no better. Kenny lost track of his point and just told Chuck, “You’re silly.” Ernie first turned away from the camera on his seat and then tried to take this tangent, goading Shaq to “Go see if you can fix the wall, will you, Shaq?” 

Note: After Shaq broke the giant screen in the back, Ernie made it worse. But when even the staff behind the camera was audibly laughing at Shaq’s reaction, Ernie declared, “as a matter of fact,” and got off the table to maybe fix the wall himself.

The Inside Guys have a hilarious comeback to an awkward moment

As the original athlete-rapper, Shaquille O’Neal has been a longtime collaborator of Jay-Z and he even released their track with Nas, “You Can’t Stop the Reign” this summer. Around the time, Charles Barkley desperately avoided the smoke with Jay-Z and Beyonce after he took jabs at Tina Knowles’ hometown of Galveston. But since then, the Roc Nation mogul has become a touchy subject even in Studio J.

Kenny’s comment alone wouldn’t have been the nail in the coffin if it weren’t for Chuck’s clutch comment. And yet the culprit dared to say, “Too soon, Kenny!” 

But finally, Kenny resumed the point he was trying to make this time using a more acceptable example. “You think Kendrick Lamar is going battle-rappin’ with people on the streets?” Points to the person off-camera who laughed so hard at Kenny’s attempt to move past Jay-Z. At least Kenny managed to bring Shaq and Ernie back to the table.

Shaq did, however, come across as a try-hard when he abruptly stated, “Hold on, Chuck, you think I can get five in a row?” Free throws against Stephen A. he means. Chuck said, “Hell no,” and there was no awkwardness from that. The quirky stuff that happens inside Inside the NBA.