The Inside the NBA crew seems to like each other — you don’t work with people for as long as they have unless you do. Having said that, there have been plenty of moments over the years where they try to rile one another up, presumably because it is extremely funny when they do that.
Shaquille O’Neal tried his hardest to do just that on Thursday night while the fellas were in Salt Lake City for this weekend’s All-Star Game. Shaq, unsurprisingly, decided to try and prod Charles Barkley by getting the crowd in attendance to chant “We Hate Chuck,” which, Barkley played in the Western Conference for a while and played against Utah in the 1997 conference finals, so maybe Jazz fans have some long-standing disdain for the dude.
The issue that Shaq ran into is this is not the case, and after this fell flat, the fans actually started to chant “We Love Chuck.”
Shaq tried to start a “We hate Chuck” chant and Utah fans weren’t having it
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— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 17, 2023
In fairness to Shaq, he did say this was in an effort to see if the fans loved or hated the Round Mound of Rebound, so he ultimately did get an answer to his question. And once his first chant didn’t work, both Shaq and Kenny Smith led the “We Love Chuck” chant, which was far more well-received.