Shaquille O’Neal ‘tried to be Bryant Gumbel’ in tough start on Inside the NBA – but on-set accident changed everything
INSIDE the NBA has become the go-to basketball show in America, reaching the heights of the entertainment industry in big part thanks to Shaquille O'Neal's on-air accident.
The NBA legend couldn't quite manifest the inner charm he's known for when he first joined the TNT flagship program in 2011, a Warner Bros. Discovery executive told The U.S. Sun.
Three years later, Shaq, 51, famously tripped over a cord and tumbled to the ground while on the air, leading to a major epiphany that changed the trajectory of the show.
The U.S. Sun spoke about Inside the NBA's success with WBD sports executive vice president and chief content officer Craig Barry during a tour around TNT studios in Atlanta, Georgia, in November.
And he recalled O'Neal's tough beginnings to emphasize the outside-the-box thinking and adaptability of the crew, both on-air talent as well as those working off camera.
Initially, Shaq didn't seem to be in sync with Charles Barkley and Kenny "The Jet" Smith, who had already found their voice having worked as broadcast partners on Inside the NBA for over a decade, Barry pointed out.
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The WBD chief said the Los Angeles Lakers icon wasn't his entertaining self and came across as too serious — as if emulating Bryant Gumbel, the great host of HBO's hard-hitting investigative sports journalism show Real Sports.
"He came on and he tried to be Bryant Gumbel, and that really wasn't working," Barry said.
"He really just wasn't that good. If you ask him, he would tell you he was not that good."
Then in 2015, O'Neal made the Inside the NBA set shaking as the retired 7-foot-1 center hit the floor while challenging Smith to one of the iconic races to the screen during a playoff halftime show.
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With his humongous body flat out on the ground and a cord wrapped around his sock — Shaq's shoe slipped off his left foot during the fall — the TNT analyst hilariously blamed host Ernie Johnson for the gaffe.
"You set me up, Ernie!" the 2000 NBA MVP yelled in a humorous remark as hundreds of thousands of TNT viewers watched.
Shaq then tackled Smith, who tried to help his co-star up, and suddenly two NBA legends ended up with their bottoms on the floor — while laughing so hard they could hardly catch a breath.
The infamous tumble made WBD producers realize that when it came to O'Neal's role on the show, they had gotten it all wrong.
"Kind of this door swung open for us, and we realized it's not Shaq. It's us," Barry said. "We're not producing him correctly. He brings a whole different physical aspect to the show."
He added: "The fact is that they all act and react differently, and the approach to producing each of them is a little different."
The producers understood that moving forward, they needed to accentuate Shaq's physical presence.
"We were like, wait a second. Okay, we get it. We'll let Shaq be Shaq all over the set," Barry said,
"And wherever he goes, whatever he does, we'll be there."
The change of approach unleashed O'Neal's comedic prowess with his slapstick antics eventually becoming a staple of Inside the NBA.
Those produced one of the show's all-time highlights last year when Smith shoved Shaq into a Christmas tree while sprinting to the board, leaving him with only his legs sticking out from underneath the green branches.
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The hilarious bits also complement Barkley's role as the main provocateur and Smith's as the in-studio psychologist — who makes sense of the pair's mischief — while Johnson keeps things under control as "the overall referee," The Jet told The U.S. Sun.
WBD now hopes to use Inside the NBA's success to promote the TNT Sports brand in the UK following the network's launch across the pond earlier this year.
