Shaquille O’Neal admits he was initially ‘terrible’ on ‘Inside the NBA’: ‘I wanted to be Bryant Gumbel’

No one has ever watched Shaquille O’Neal on Inside the NBA and thought, “Bryant Gumbel,” which is a good thing.

Inside the NBA was already a well-established studio show when O’Neal was exploring his TV options after retiring from the league in 2011. And the addition of O’Neal to its cast of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley seemed borderline gluttonous. TNT went ahead and signed O’Neal anyway, and they definitely didn’t sign him to be Bryant Gumbel.

O’Neal joined Jason and Travis Kelce on their New Heights podcast this week, where he admitted his start on Inside the NBA wasn’t without some growing pains.

“I was nervous, and I was terrible because I wanted to be Bryant Gumbel,” O’Neal said. “And the producer TK (Tim Kiely) called me one day and said, ‘You keep doing that, you’re not gonna be here. We want you to be Shaq.’”

O’Neal said everything started to click once he realized the best way to fit in as a newcomer on the show was by being himself.

“Good game, bad game, doesn’t matter. After the show, they want to hear experience, they want to hear stories, and they want to hear tactics from respectable people,” O’Neal continued. “When you listen to a Shaq, he must know what he’s talking about, he’s been there six times. Barkley’s a Hall-of-Famer, Kenny’s won it twice. And then we add a little fun to it, a lot of humor to it, and I think that’s what’s always made our show great.”

Inside the NBA was widely regarded as one of the best studio shows in sports before O’Neal joined in 2011. Barkley, Smith, and Johnson already had more than a decade’s worth of chemistry that O’Neal had to fit into. Trying to fit into that chemistry while simultaneously being someone other than yourself is impossible. But O’Neal eventually became comfortable with being himself, and the show flourished with his entertainment value and willingness to spar with Barkley.

Now, Inside the NBA is preparing for the next significant change in its history, as it moves to ESPN and ABC next season. TNT Sports will continue to produce the show, but airing on ESPN is still a notable change. And just as Shaq needed to be himself to be successful, ESPN will need to let the entire Inside the NBA crew continue to be themselves for this new partnership to be successful.