The Internet Is Freaking Out After Shaquille O’Neal Becomes A Meme Of A Meme On ‘Inside The NBA’

Shaquille O’Neal is both literally and figuratively a larger than life character.

Which makes the Basketball Hall of Famer a perfect fit on TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA‘ alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley.

The studio show is as famous for its basketball breakdowns and analysis as it is its high jinks and hilarity.

Take, for instance, Shaq absolutely laying out Barkley during a recent episode.

One moment, however, landed itself in the theoretically meme hall of fame.

KnowYourMeme.com gives the full breakdown:

“On January 14th, 2021, an NBA game between the basketball teams San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets took place. In the game, Houston Rockets player Christian Wood scored 27 points, leading former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, who was interviewing the player post-game, to apologize for his earlier comments, saying that he “wasn’t really familiar with his game.” To this, Christian Wood replied, “Oh, man, you’re a casual.”

Following the interview, Twitter[1] user @r0bato uploaded a clip of the exchange between O’Neil and Wood to Twitter, with the tweet gaining over 150 retweets and 1,100 likes in two years (shown below). Within two minutes, Twitter[2] news account @TheNBACentral shared the clip, with the post gaining over 510,000 views, 630 retweets and 8,800 likes in two years.

On Sunday night, after Suns star Devin Booker led Phoenix to a Game 4 win over the Denver Nuggets and evened the series, Shaq decided to go full memeception.

“Devin Booker, I’m sorry. I owe you an apology,” he said. “I got on TV said ‘you will not go 20-for-25 again.’ You mess around and went 14-for-18, 3-for-4 (from 3). So sir, I apologize. Love the way you’re playing.”

Of course, NBA Twitter very quickly called out The Big Diesel for his meme-ing.

Credit to Shaq, he’s not created a meme within a meme. Not many people can claim to have done so. It just further cements the big man’s legacy.