The rivalry between ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins and Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley of TNT has been raging for well over a year now. But whether you’re a fan of one side or the other, or just a fan of the drama, you can’t help but acknowledge this fact:
Kendrick Perkins is telling the truth about Inside the NBA.
It all started in 2024 before the playoffs began when Perkins lit up Barkley and Shaq with a simple criticism: they don’t actually watch NBA basketball. That led to the Inside the NBA pair taking turns with a Perk punching bag on national television. Perkins then responded that he hoped his criticism would inspire Barkley and O’Neal to pay more attention to basketball games and hoping that they upped their game as analysts.
That is clearly not the case.
Earlier this week, Shaq went viral when he tried to analyze the Detroit Pistons and gave credit to Chauncey Billups as their head coach. While Billups was the point guard for the Pistons team that upset the Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals, he is definitely not the head coach of the Pistons now. Billups coaches the Portland Trail Blazers, and J.B. Bickerstaff coaches the Pistons.
But when Candace Parker called him out on the mistake, Shaq casually said, “I don’t watch Detroit.”
Keep in mind, this was seconds after he broke down Cade Cunningham’s game as the frontrunner for Most Improved Player of the Year and said backup center Isaiah Stewart was his favorite player on the team.
But it also came after he called the Pistons “boring” on his podcast, got their record completely wrong, and completely dismissed the remarkable turnaround the franchise has made after winning just 14 games last season.
Shaquille O’Neal has no idea what he is talking about with the Detroit Pistons. And that’s not a take, a criticism, or throwing shade—that’s just an obvious fact.
When NBA fans and players take issue with the belief that league coverage is too negative, this is exactly what they are talking about. The Pistons are one of the absolute best stories in the NBA this year, and they may wind up with one of the largest one-year turnarounds in association history. But because Shaquille O’Neal and Inside the NBA can’t be bothered to pay attention or actually know who is coaching the team, they just get carelessly thrown on the trash heap that they believe is the modern-day NBA.
Could you imagine Jason Kelce going on ESPN without knowing the name of the Minnesota Vikings head coach when he was talking about the NFL last year? It would be an embarrassment to both Kelce and ESPN. What if it was Shaq correcting Candace Parker instead of the other way around? Could you imagine the backlash?
So why don’t we collectively have that same energy here? Shaquille O’Neal gets paid $15 million a year by TNT! He is one of the highest-paid personalities in all of sports media. Is it too much to ask to know who coaches playoff teams? This isn’t the Washington Wizards or New Orleans Pelicans we’re discussing here.
So why don’t we look at what Kendrick Perkins says about Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley not watching basketball and admit he’s 100% correct?
Taking a step back, we all know that Inside the NBA did not become the most popular studio show in sports because of its robust Xs and Os analysis. This has never been JJ Redick and LeBron James’ Mind the Game podcast. The show has been built on the personalities of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal because they are funny and entertaining, and whatever they say demands attention.
And it has been glorious. Truth be told, Inside the NBA has leaned into their lack of deep knowledge about the NBA with viral clips like “Who He Play For?” that have created classic moments and memes.
But there’s a difference between not knowing where Aaron Brooks plays and calling one of the best stories in the NBA “boring” because you don’t know anything about them.
Nobody expected the Detroit Pistons to be good. At the beginning of the season, they were scheduled for zero appearances on TNT and just one solitary appearance on ESPN, so you could understand if they wouldn’t have been on anybody’s radar. But that is far from the case now. Detroit currently sits at 37-29, firmly entrenched in 6th place in the Eastern Conference, where they will be guaranteed a spot in the first round of the playoffs.
That’s great! That’s something that should be celebrated! But once again, here we are stuck talking about Shaquille O’Neal feuding with Kendrick Perkins instead of the actual basketball. And it doesn’t matter if it’s LeBron James fighting with Stephen A. Smith, Perkins fighting with Barkley, or Shaq dissing Detroit—it seems that all the major voices of the NBA want to do is stir up drama amongst themselves… maybe because that takes less work than actually caring and knowing about the product.
Nobody is expecting Shaquille O’Neal or Charles Barkley to suddenly transform themselves into the NBA version of Dan Orlovsky. Still, a little bit of effort would go a long way when it comes to knowing today’s NBA. It wouldn’t have to take away from the entertainment they bring nightly, either. And if these fabulous, funny, engaging personalities actually engaged with today’s NBA a little bit more, maybe they would like what they see.
Maybe they could build up a new generation of young stars like Cade Cunningham. Perhaps it would help the ratings and interest and popularity of the NBA grow instead of being sucked into another negativity vortex about the regular season not mattering, players shooting too many threes, and nobody stepping up to be the next face of the NBA. Maybe nobody’s stepping up because they don’t have the opportunity with Stephen A., Barkley, Shaq, and others sucking up all the oxygen. After all, they are too focused on themselves.
When Shaquille O’Neal dismisses one of the best stories in the NBA as “boring” or flatly says, “I don’t watch,” it communicates to NBA fans and the world that it just doesn’t matter. If Shaq doesn’t care then why should anybody else? And that’s when it moves from something that can easily be laughed off as part of the fun to something that’s actually detrimental to the NBA.