{"id":417170,"date":"2025-11-17T21:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/417170\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T21:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T21:22:10","slug":"shaquille-oneal-to-lend-boost-to-warners-dunkman-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/417170\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal to Lend Boost to Warner’s ‘Dunkman’ Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cInside the NBA\u201d has migrated over to ESPN,<\/a> but TNT still has a few other jobs for some of that popular studio show\u2019s hosts.<\/p>\n

\n\tShaquille O\u2019Neal will serve as a judge along with other NBA greats including Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, Nate Robinson and Mac McClung, and Chris Webber on \u201cDunkman<\/a>,\u201d a six-episode reality competition program set to air across Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s TNT, truTV and HBO Max in December.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn \u201cDunkman,\u201d 40 amateur dunkers from around the globe will compete for a $200,000 grand prize. And while the premise may not prove shocking, what\u2019s interesting is that Warner\u2019s TNT Sports<\/a> is continuing to find ancillary roles for O\u2019Neal and others even as the company\u2019s flagship sports program becomes a property that will be more associated with Disney\u2019s ESPN.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdam Lefkoe , a TNT Sports commentator and podcaster who has worked with O\u2019Neal in the past will host the program, which starts on Thursday, December 4 at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., and airs in the same hours on two subsequent weeks. Jalen Rose, the former ESPN commentator and host, will appear as an analyst.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show will give Warner some association with basketball after the company lost its NBA rights after the end of the league\u2019s previous season, cutting ties after a decades-long relationship. The NBA\u2019s current rights deal puts its games on properties tied to NBCUniversal, Amazon and Disney.<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner continues to produce \u201cInside the NBA,\u201d and there have been discussions about launching a more general sports-commentary program featuring the \u201cInside\u201d hosts for Warner\u2019s networks. O\u2019Neal has worked with Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith for decades. Smith has signed a deal with ESPN that will result in him making appearances on the Disney network\u2019s shows including \u201cFirst Take.\u201d Johnson has been expected to stay to work with Warner, where he also has MLB duties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new program will add to O\u2019Neal\u2019s many media activities. He also works as a popular commercial pitchman<\/a> for companies including The General, an insurance purveyor. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDunkman\u201d will take place at Overtime Elite Arena in Atlanta. The series is produced by TNT Sports in association with A. Smith & Co, producer of reality series ranging from \u201cKitchen Nightmares\u201d to \u201cTitan Games,\u201d and Authentic Brands Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cInside the NBA\u201d has migrated over to ESPN, but TNT still has a few other jobs for some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,62548,6,1302,1107],"class_list":{"0":"post-417170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dunkman","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-shaquille-oneal","12":"tag-tnt-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115567142650390294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}