‘Y’all Hating!’ Heated Shouting Match Between Shaq, Charles Barkley Over NBA MVP: ‘He Wasn’t Playing, Fool!’

With less than one month to go in the NBA regular season, MVP debates are heating up. Thursday night, two former league MVP winners, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal passionately argued their selections on TNT’s Inside The NBA.

No center has won the NBA MVP since Shaq took home the award in 2000. After more than two decades of guards and forwards being named the Most Valuable Player, Shaq wants Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid to win this year’s trophy, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Y’all just hating now,” Shaq said when the rest of the NBA on TNT crew suggested Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić was more deserving. “Your criteria is not potent enough for me y’all are hating.”

Barkley pointed to Embiid’s inability to remain healthy, while the Nuggets center has equally impressive statistics without missing games.

“Hating because the dude missed 20 games!” Barkley said in response to Shaq’s accusation. “He didn’t miss five games, he didn’t miss seven games, he’s basically had 20 in a 72 games season.”

“What about LeBron?” Barkley continued. “If you’re not going to penalize guys for missing games, LeBron should be the MVP.” But Shaq argued LeBron James hasn’t been able to build on his numbers since getting sidelined by a sprained ankle earlier this season.

“Because he wasn’t playing, fool!” Barkley fired back. “His numbers didn’t go down when he wasn’t playing!”

Shaq wouldn’t concede, restating Embiid should be the MVP while flaunting one of his four NBA Championship rings and calling out the “little weaklings in the media” who never played the game.

Watch above via, TNT