What is Shaquille O'Neal so mad about, and why is NBA coverage so mean spirited?

[maverick_41]

I think Shaq's target audience are casual fans who watch from time to time, don't follow many players and generally just want to laugh and complain about plays and players.

[og15]

He didn't really have talent either when he was playing. He was nothing without his size. And he never cared to become a better free throw shooter. I heard a coach suggested he shoot free throws granny style, but he wouldn't because he thought it would be bad for his image. Didn't Wilt shoot free throws granny style? Somebody in those days did.

Incidentally, what about aiming for inside the white square on the glass? Isn't the ball supposed to go in 95% of the time after it hits the glass inside the white square? Isn't that why it's there?

Now we're getting carried away. Of course his size was a big tool, this is basketball, physical tools, many different ones including size are part of why players are good.

Shaq was definitely skilled. Very solid footwork for his spins in the post, he was the best low post passer out of all those C's in that golden era of C's he played in. He was great at off ball movement, knowing how to get into space, make quick moves, and he had very nice touch, and sure, all his scoring was inside 12 feet, but this is all skill.

This is just like the people who say Giannis isn't that skilled, but don't recognize the little attention to detail aspects of how you attack, how you do this specific move, etc that makes him better than the other random athletic bigger guy.

Just a little example here:

Spoiler:

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/JgATguWg030

of the little things people don't recognize the skill of, because it can all look the same if you aren't honing down on it, then we just say, "oh his just works because he's got this or that physical tool".

[foreigngrammar]

What I don't understand is how does he still have a job as a TV analyst when he clearly sucks at this and hates on the sport?

You could ask the same about Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless. Or why Gil's Arena podcast is so popular, even though they constantly have the dumbest takes. Or why you find endless posts on social media with absolute insane takes that often contain obvious mistakes.

This is what generates clicks and views and get people talking. We have switched from every publicity is good publicity to bad publicity is the best publicity. How often is somebody posting some insightful articles and videos compared to some crazy hot takes on the general board? It is hard to create good content. It is even harder to create good content and make it go viral. It's a lot easier to make people mad and react. It's like with customer service in companies, most people will more likely share a bad experience that made them mad, than a positive one.

It's 100% done on purpose. To go with Shaq's example, I didn't even know that he had a podcast, until I had about half a dozen videos showing up in my Youtube feed where decent Basketball Youtubers lost it about Shaq not knowing that the Pistons have a winning record and thinking that Chauncey Billups is their head coach on one of his latest episodes. That's of course a free add for the podcast and the related clip channels. . Media works similar to 90s professional Wrestling at this point.

Watch some 10-12 year old Inside the NBA clips, it was a completely diferent show. Yes, they also had jokes and some goofy moments each episode, but it was still about basketball. There might be a 5-10 minute clip of Shaq and Chuck demonstrating effective pick and roll based on a situatons they saw in one of the games. That's why I found the show interesting, since it was a fun show about Basketball that didn't take itself too serious.

Haven't watched a full show in probably 2-3 seasons, completely stopped watching any new clips from them this season, same goes for the majority of Basketball media, outside of a few channeçs and sides that generally have reasonable takes and aren't too extremely biased in one direction.

It's just a testimony of society falling apart and decay to stupidity in general! Hot takes and ignorance everywhere. America's the role model

[zimpy27]

Didn't he do stuff like urinate in people drink bottles and put mouth guards in his butt..


He's putrid

[Optms]

People need to realize these guys don’t watch basketball. There’s a reason they have a segment called “who he play for” and Barkley gets them all wrong

Even the big podcasts don’t watch the NBA like they say they do. I was watching one and the whole panel was trying to remember what “that dude on Denver who shoots” name is. They meant MPJ

Sports media for the most part is a joke

Yeah. It's insane to me how little they watch. MPJ is part of the Nuggets core, has been for several years. And they couldn't even single him out? Absurdity how they even maintain their jobs. Complete disbelief.

[FreeBird23]

Didn't he do stuff like urinate in people drink bottles and put mouth guards in his butt..


He's putrid

And thats probably the tip of the iceberg.

He's probably done worse

[-Luke-]

I do not watch Inside the NBA or ESPN, but I am not American, I get games through other media. I can't imagine watching that, but I understand in America thats often the only way to watch games, so you have to watch Stephen A or Shaq talk, I feel bad for you guys.

Why is that TNT show still on, because any time I hear anyone I follow talk about it, they talk how they crap on the NBA, and I mean they literally are National NBA media. How is NBA even allow these guys on tv then lol? When I watch F1, I don't sit through people who say to me that its ****, like wtf?

The comparison to other sports is a good point. Is it just me or does this not happen in other sports, at least not to that extent? I don't think I ever hear "Verstappen would never have been able to beat Schumacher/Senna", "Indurain would have crushed Pogačar" or "Messi would have been a role player in the 70s". Sure, you hear stuff like that from old-school fans, but not from analysts/experts on TV or do I just miss it every time?

[UcanUwill]

I do not watch Inside the NBA or ESPN, but I am not American, I get games through other media. I can't imagine watching that, but I understand in America thats often the only way to watch games, so you have to watch Stephen A or Shaq talk, I feel bad for you guys.

Why is that TNT show still on, because any time I hear anyone I follow talk about it, they talk how they crap on the NBA, and I mean they literally are National NBA media. How is NBA even allow these guys on tv then lol? When I watch F1, I don't sit through people who say to me that its ****, like wtf?

The comparison to other sports is a good point. Is it just me or does this not happen in other sports, at least not to that extent? I don't think I ever hear "Verstappen would never have been able to beat Schumacher/Senna", "Indurain would have crushed Pogačar" or "Messi would have been a role player in the 70s". Sure, you hear stuff like that from old-school fans, but not from analysts/experts on TV or do I just miss it every time?

For some reason, at least in Basketball, people prefer former player blowhards, instead of actual analysts. Those stupid opinions like - he knows what hes talking about cause he played the game -, or - I do not care what this guy says cause hes just a nerd -, are still alive.

The dumber, the jockier, the more clickbaity you are, the better. National channels fire guys like Lowe to extend Perk and ****. There are many platforms that talk NBA, so I am good, but its a bit sad that actual intelligent conversations are only found on more obscure platforms.

[brackdan70]

It’s a bitter old man “back in my day” kind of thing. He has some deep seated resentment for some reason…maybe a defensive part that believes he never got the appreciation her deserves and that manifests in bitterness.
Dude would benefit from some therapy.

[TorontoBarneys]

If you don't want boomers yelling at clouds, then stop watching the shows they are employed to headline, and these people will stop being hired and replaced with younger, different talking heads.

[DOT]

Shaq is mad because players today make so much more money than he did

He's told the story before, the reason he got into basketball was for the money, he saw Jon Koncak's contract in 1989 and thought if he could make that much, Shaq could make even more because Koncak wasn't that good and Shaq was

So for a guy with a huge ego, who thinks (pretty correctly) that he was one of the greatest players of all time, when he sees guys who are less talented than him making more money than he did, it irks him

It is a weirdly unique NBA thing though, how many former players are bitter. Like, you watch football coverage and sure, you have guys doing the whole "the league is soft now, back in my day they wouldn't've lasted blah blah blah", but the majority of the coverage is positive, like you don't see Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan at halftime talking about how they don't watch games and who cares about the teams, with the exception of TNF where Al Michaels is phoning it in and it sounds like the most boring thing in the world

It's pretty jarring to go watch NBA coverage and see halftime shows where it's all complaining and putting players down.

[Fencer reregistered]

Shaq is a charismatic ****.

Charismatic **** are popular.

He's not even charismatic though. He talks like someone who just got out of a coma.

People like Shaq most when he's a bouncing around as a giant clown or kid, but that makes for a terrible analyst, when they are expected to just sit down and talk sports analysis.

Shaq can be funny in his icy hot commercials, he's not funny trying to analyze basketball.

Used to rant all the time about people calling prime Shaq funny or charismatic. In his prime his only ‘joke’ was ‘I’m going to ignore and disrespect whatever you asked me to mumble ‘I like hamburgers and pajamas and I read 20 books a day’.’ The funny part seemed to be not being able to converse, always felt sort of racist to me.

Those are arguments that he SHOULDN'T be charismatic, not that he ISN'T.

[Ice Man]

The TNT guys learned a long time ago that the more that they mock & attack players, the higher their ratings. Hubie Brown represented the old school of analysis, in spotlighting the good of the game, These guys are the opposite; they look for the bad. They are the generation of social media.

I avoid them like the plague, only more so.

[dhsilv2]

I've been seeing more and more Shaq stuff in my youtube and other media clips. It's frustrating as I have zero interest in seeing a man child who barely speaks english hating on everything.

[HotelVitale]

He's not even charismatic though. He talks like someone who just got out of a coma.

People like Shaq most when he's a bouncing around as a giant clown or kid, but that makes for a terrible analyst, when they are expected to just sit down and talk sports analysis.

Shaq can be funny in his icy hot commercials, he's not funny trying to analyze basketball.

Used to rant all the time about people calling prime Shaq funny or charismatic. In his prime his only ‘joke’ was ‘I’m going to ignore and disrespect whatever you asked me to mumble ‘I like hamburgers and pajamas and I read 20 books a day’.’ The funny part seemed to be not being able to converse, always felt sort of racist to me.

Those are arguments that he SHOULDN'T be charismatic, not that he ISN'T.

In the sense that charisma is subjective, sure. But I was saying I found him painfully uncharismatic, like a child who grabs the mic to free style and then can't say anything. So he just grins at the audience and we feel sorry for him. It made zero sense that people were like 'so hilarious, he can't even speak!'

[Invictus88]

Era comparison discussions rarely accomplish anything. Nobody has a time machine to prove who's right.

Shaq can be fairly confident that Chet or Wemby would fail in his era. Fine. But there's reasons why things were the way they were back then and why the league is as it is now (Rule changes, skill progression, other meta changes). The nba constantly evolves towards whatever form has the best chance of winning compared to the status quo. And like it or not Shaq' era is not the current brand prevailing.

It's okay for Shaq to feel like his nba is stronger; especially if someone comes up to him challenging that. But the big mistake is to take that sentiment and translate that into a hate for the current game.

Young players should respect their elder statesmen. Elders definitely should defend themselves. But doing what Shaq is doing is just an old man yelling at kids to keep off his lawn.

Get over it. If it continues then TNT should replace him with a guy who doesn't disdain what they are commenting on.

[liquidswords]

The TNT guys learned a long time ago that the more that they mock & attack players, the higher their ratings. Hubie Brown represented the old school of analysis, in spotlighting the good of the game, These guys are the opposite; they look for the bad. They are the generation of social media.

I avoid them like the plague, only more so.

Tim Legler is a "new school" guy that should be getting a lot more airtime. Actually takes the time to break down the game

[knicksstuff]

I really think it all comes down to money with the older generation.... These guys were unlucky to be stars before the big TV deals now they see 3rd tier players making more than they did as stars and they cant handle or accept that

[Prestige]

I used to love Inside the NBA years ago when it was just Kenny, Chuck and Ernie. I hate watching Shaq.

Compare it to the CBS Sports Soccer/Football crew with Henry, Carragher and Richards. Those guys are funny but also analytical and there’s no hate. They make you like soccer.

[Lockdown504090]

The only memorable baskebtall analysis thats been done by shaq or barkley is them being wrong... just want to point that out.