{"id":87565,"date":"2025-06-09T21:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T21:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87565\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T21:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T21:15:12","slug":"shaquille-oneal-is-done-watching-the-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87565\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal is done watching the NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shaquille O\u2019Neal is literally one of the NBA\u2019s biggest ambassadors, but he\u2019ll only watch the Finals if he\u2019s getting paid to do so.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Neal officially entered summer vacation mode after Game 2 of the NBA Finals Sunday night and he has no interest in tuning in to see how the rest of the series plays out.<\/p>\n<p>Despite emphatically <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/tnt-sports\/shaquille-oneal-kenny-smith-f-bombs-inside-the-nba.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">signing off TNT for the final time<\/a> earlier this month, NBA TV commissioned O\u2019Neal and Kenny Smith to work on their pre and postgame coverage of the Finals for Games 1 and 2. Charles Barkley will join the show for Games 3 and 4. And when the buzzer sounded on the Oklahoma City Thunder\u2019s 123-107 win over the Indiana Pacers Sunday night, O\u2019Neal was mentally in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cNow we have a series. I won\u2019t even be watching\u2026I\u2019m gonna be in the Bahamas.\u201d \u2013 Shaq reacts to OKC beating the Pacers in Game 2 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gVdbLlsXIE\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/gVdbLlsXIE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/awfulannouncing\/status\/1932103410003976587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June 9, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIndiana stole one. I\u2019m just glad it\u2019s not the old format, that 2-3-2. Remember that format? That 2-3-2? So now we have a series. I won\u2019t even be watching,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna be in the Bahamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kenny Smith quickly reminded Shaq that you can watch ESPN and ABC from the Bahamas, with Chris Miles chiming in to note, \u201cNBA TV is also on in the Bahamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot in the ocean,\u201d O\u2019Neal insisted before taking a big sip from his clear plastic cup while giving the ice a good swirl and saying, \u201cThis ain\u2019t water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers aren\u2019t the most compelling franchises nationally, but the NBA is undoubtedly hoping for a long series and splitting the first two games helps. But if they\u2019re rooting for a long series, the NBA must be banking on having some fans who are more loyal than Shaq. Because Shaq is fine watching the NBA Finals when he\u2019s drinking a cocktail and getting paid to do it, but without that incentive, he\u2019s checking out.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA is proud to boast having O\u2019Neal and Charles Barkley as analysts and ambassadors. It\u2019s part of the reason why there has been so much coverage on the future of Inside the NBA. But O\u2019Neal and Barkley routinely make it seem like they\u2019re not actually fans of the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal is literally one of the NBA\u2019s biggest ambassadors, but he\u2019ll only watch the Finals if he\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[11875,7,190,1302],"class_list":{"0":"post-87565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-2025-nba-finals","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba-tv","11":"tag-shaquille-oneal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114655482676473234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87565","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=87565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}