Shaquille O’Neal would have been a good coach! His son Shareef O’Neal would certainly vouch for it since the 4x NBA champ once coached him. However, after his retirement, he took up the job of an analyst. Why didn’t he choose to coach? He has always been candid about the reasons. Moreover, there’s another factor! Chaos recently hit the studio when O’Neal mentioned his views on coaching.

Inside the NBA analyst Charles Barkley was engaged in a heated conversation on the Sacramento Kings. Barkley blamed the players and claimed that they should be playing well to improve their defense. Soon the conversation shifted when O’Neal agreed with Barkley but presented his take on coaches vs. players. 

“Just like I’ve been saying the whole time, but you’re talking about, ‘Oh, you need a coach’,” Shaq said. Chuck was quick to get annoyed and urged that coaching is important. He doubled down, saying that even if Shaq believes that coaches aren’t important, they are. “You say coaching don’t matter. Coaching does matter….Listen, man, quit saying coaching don’t matter,” he added.

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To this, Shaq argued back that he doesn’t think coaches aren’t important. However, he stated that he believes Chuck gives too much credit to the coaches, whereas it is the players who can bring significant changes in the game by using their own instincts and leadership. The two seemingly had a slight verbal argument on the matter.

“I never said coaching matters….I said you’re giving coaches too much credit,” Shaq added. The two veteran analysts have often gone head-to-head on whether coaching is important. However, skipping to the good part, turns out that the Lakers icon also believes that whether the team loses or wins is more to do with the players. Hence, if the team could not perform, it was on the squad and not the coach on the sidelines.

But, has the Inside the NBA analyst always been that? What about Shaq’s own playing days in the league? 

What does Shaquille O’Neal think about his former coaches?

Does he think his former coaches weren’t also important? He has mentioned it once. Turns out, O’Neal’s opinion on coaches doesn’t change much when it comes to his own. While speaking to Chuck on NBA on TNT, Shaq spoke about former Lakers head coaches, Phil Jackson with whom he won 3 back-to-back titles in Lakers as well as Pat Riley with whom he won one title in Miami. 

“I keep telling you. You be putting too much on the coaches anyway. If we lose a 3-1 lead, it ain’t because of the coach. It’s because we didn’t step up…Phil and Pat, sit you’re a** down, let me go to work! When I lost and got swept, it had nothing to do with the coach. Me. All me. Because I’m driving the bus. Coaching doesn’t matter,” O’Neal said.

Apart from this, there’s another reason why O’Neal doesn’t want to take up the job of coaching. He once coached Shareef for AAU, but that was it. He doesn’t want to coach because he believes that he has an old-school mentality, like that of the legendary coaches, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, and the great Gregg Popovich. 

He believes that he will not be able to relate to the new generation. If not coaching, O’Neal has excelled in other areas for sure. One thing that coaches might like about it is that it saves them from O’Neal’s extreme criticism that he uses on players, for sure!