Shaq reveals the reason why Charles Barkley seems to hate the Warriors

But why does Barkley hate the Warriors? SFGATE asked his “Inside the NBA” colleague Shaquille O’Neal at a charity function last week.

“There’s no hate,” O’Neal told SFGATE. “Chuck knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s all marketing.”

Yet O’Neal may have revealed the most compelling answer to why Barkley hates the Warriors when he responded to a different question, about the team’s star Steph Curry. 

O’Neal has been one of Curry’s most outspoken supporters over the years. When SFGATE asked the NBA Hall of Famer why he seems to appreciate Curry so much, he brought up Barkley in his answer, referencing an argument the two had on “Inside the NBA” a month ago about Spurs rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama.

“It’s because he’s different. We’ve never seen him before,” O’Neal told SFGATE of Curry, echoing the sentiments he expressed on the show. “Chuck, Kenny [Smith, a fellow TNT analyst], everyone’s saying we haven’t seen Wemby before. Yes we have. Bol Bol. We’ve seen a 7’4” guy who can shoot and dribble. We haven’t seen Steph before.”

“And we ain’t losing to nobody, EVER,” O’Neal wrote, referencing his fictional pairing with Curry. 

The admiration appears to be mutual. In a recent appearance on the NBC Sports Bay Area podcast “Dubs Talk,” Curry was asked which players in NBA history he would have liked to play. O’Neal was one of his three choices, along with Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. 

“I think pick-and-roll with me and Hakeem or me and Shaq would be pretty much unstoppable,” Curry said.

Curry also said he would rather be physically dominant in the way O’Neal was than be a high-flying dunker like Jordan. 

“I’ve seen the Shaq highlights, I want to break some backboards every once in a while,” Curry said. “That’d be fun.”

O’Neal was also tardy last week for Medea Charitable Foundation’s Celebrity Draft and Dine in downtown SF, where celebrities like Barry Bonds, Dave Stewart and Dusty Baker auctioned off their time as dinner guests for that evening, and SFGATE asked him these questions. O’Neal arrived more than an hour later than expected, causing delays for the donor diners (including some heading to that night’s Warriors game), but his presence helped Medea co-founder Randy Winn, the former Giants outfielder, raise more than $100,000 to support children’s athletic, educational, social and community activities.

While O’Neal’s love of Curry may be genuine, apparently not everything on “Inside the NBA” is — if you believe the big man.