No less than brothers now, but it turns out that if Shaquille O’Neal would’ve hurt anyone in the league, it might have been Charles Barkley. The revelation came to light during a discussion about Shaq’s punches in the NBA. Adjectives like “windmills” and “life-enders” were used to describe the punches on a recent episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq. However, Stephen Jackson stated that the big man actually pulls his punches.

Jackson believes the big man usually realizes mid-punch that he cannot do that to the other person. “Yeah, I do,” Shaq agreed with the statement. But he pointed out the incident with Charles Barkley as an exception to this. If you followed Charles Barkley as a player, you’d know he never backed down from a confrontation, whether it was throwing punches at Bill Laimbeer or his altercation with Shawn Kemp.

The same goes for Shaquille O’Neal, who has had multiple instances of intense physical altercations. From slapping Greg Ostertag to his swing at Brad Miller, the list is quite long. So, when it came down to an altercation between players like Shaq and Chuck, the fight was bound to be intense. No wonder Shaq, on his podcast, admitted Chuck to be the only player he didn’t pull back his punch against.

The Big Diesel re-narrated the infamous story that most NBA fans would’ve heard and witnessed. Just to refresh your memory, the incident in question occurred when Barkley, during a matchup with O’Neal in 1999, threw the ball at Shaq’s face after a foul. Shaq then swung at Chuck with a full punch, one that fortunately missed as Barkley moved in the other direction.

Now, we don’t need to tell you what might’ve happened to Barkley had the Big Diesel landed that punch. But what if the 15-time All-Star never pulled his punches at all?

What would’ve happened if Shaquille O’Neal did not pull back his punch against Brad Miller?

For those who don’t remember, this tense moment unfolded on January 12, 2002, during the fourth quarter of a game between the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers. Shaq, then playing for the Lakers, faced persistent fouls from Brad Miller and Charles Oakley of the Bulls. With the Lakers up by just three points, the two players aimed to turn the game in their favor by containing the Big Diesel through fouls.

But in the final minutes, O’Neal, frustrated by the hard hits from both Miller and Oakley, retaliated. He threw a powerful roundhouse punch at Brad Miller, whose back was turned when O’Neal charged at him. Fortunately for Miller, the punch narrowly missed, possibly saving him from serious injury. It appeared that Oakley had committed the initial foul on Shaq, leading to an escalation of the incident.

As a result, all three players—O’Neal, Miller, and Oakley—were ejected from the game. The Bulls capitalized on the chaos, winning 106-104. Reflecting on the incident years later in an interview on the All The Smoke podcast, Miller was candid about the potential outcome.

Miller mentioned that he and the ex-LA Lakers star were on good terms, but he couldn’t overlook the possibility that his agent might have pursued legal action if the punch had landed. Miller joked about the idea of being a shareholder in Shaq’s many business ventures, saying, “How many damn companies he got? I’ll take 5 percent of every company.” At the same time, Miller accepted that he would have likely been sucking through a straw if Shaq had landed that blow.