There are a lot of jokes about what goes on ‘inside’ Inside the NBA. Kendrick Perkins’ feud with them is rooted in their not watching games behind the scenes. Charles Barkley famously catches up with his favorite shows during the breaks. Shaquille O’Neal has his social media antics going on and is generally goofing off. Many times, he’s keeping his DJ skills sharp. It appears that the party goes on well beyond work hours. It was enough for a newbie to the TNT crew to be scarred for life and give up on the luxurious perks that come with working with Shaq.

That was Candace Parker’s experience when she started her analyst career. She joined TNT Tuesdays in 2018, where Shaq pulled his second shift of the week before Inside the NBA on Tuesdays. O’Neal tends to be generous with his colleagues, often letting Chuck use his private jet to go between Atlanta and Arizona. Parker, too, had a standing invitation to his jet. But she respectfully declines.

She revealed the reason behind this during her latest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Currently hosted by Anthony Anderson. The Black-ish star also has his own friendship with Shaq and wanted to get to the bottom of this story. “You have a great story with Shaq. You guys were working together, and you were flying back to LA, so he invited you on his plane?” Which Parker confirmed was the “Last time. First and last.”

So what exactly happened? “I was new to the team, and we were in North Carolina doing a shoot,” the WNBA legend recalled. “He was like, ‘I’m going to LA. Just hop on my PJ [Private Jet].’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, that beats getting in line at Delta and, you know, all that stuff.'” This would make the perfect ‘Little did she know…’ scenario for a TikTok in 2025 because she regretted that decision for a long time.

“I hop on his PJ. This dude dj’d on full blast for four hours and 30 minutes and then proceeded, for the last 35 minutes, to fall asleep and snore louder than the music. So that was the first and the last time that I took Shaq’s plane.”

Note: Parker was still under contract with the Los Angeles Sparks when she simultaneously started her sportscasting career at a network that primarily films in Atlanta, Georgia. She was rehabbing injuries around that time and also playing overseas. For how much she has to travel, more than one trip with O’Neal on his Bombardier Challenger 650 worth $27 million would’ve been great, but might cost her eardrums!

Anderson reiterated, “Shaq really is a DJ, but his choice of music is EDM. So he’s blasting EDM music for four hours and 30 minutes on the plane.” Suddenly, crying babies and delayed hassles of commercial flights don’t seem so bad, do they?

Parker has had a few grievances with Shaq throughout their time on TNT, including when O’Neal wanted to lower the rims in the WNBA to increase the frequency of dunks. But she loves the big guy, and Shaq is always grateful to Ace for being an inspiration to his daughter, Me’Arah. Too bad we won’t be having any more of that TNT Tuesday magic.

No more Shaquille O’Neal and Candace Parker on TV

TNT lost the NBA Media rights last year, but Inside the NBA will still be running the same way with the same crew out of Studio J in Atlanta. While Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny “The Jet” Smith (whose knees Parker’s were compared to), and Ernie Johnson are heading to ESPN, the Tuesday team that included Parker, Vince Carter, Adam Lefkoe, and formerly Jamal Crawford with Shaq has disbanded.

Carter and Crawford now join the NBC Sports team that has Carmelo Anthony and the occasional Michael Jordan. Candace Parker joins former TNT Tuesday analyst Dwyane Wade on the inaugural NBA broadcast team at Amazon Prime.

That means Parker finally has her peaceful game-watching time back. Even Carter and Crawford can escape from O’Neal’s well known pranks (no respite for Kenny and Chuck though). As Parker told Anderson, “In the viewing room, when we’re trying to watch the NBA games. He’s our personal—he’s our personal DJ.”

Amazon’s primary studio location is not known at this moment. If it were to be in Atlanta, we’d imagine Parker hanging out with the old crew at Shaq’s backstage EDM parties. She does say, “Definitely, love him a lot,” for the big fella. Just not enough to go on another plane ride with him.