Shaquille O’Neal’s Nikola Jokic rant made NBA, TNT look like fools

Ke Huy Quan opens the envelope at the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. “And the Oscar goes to … Robert Downey Jr.!”

Only he’s … not … done.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Quan continues. “I’ve got to get something off my chest.”

The incidental music stops cold. The hailstorm of applause slows to a golf-ish trickle. There’s a sea of murmuring and gasps. Downey cocks his head to the side and raises one of those snarky Tony Stark eyebrows of his.

“I want you to hear it from me first,” Quan says. “I thought Sterling K. Brown should’ve won this. That’s no disrespect to you.”

Director Hamish Hamilton blows a gasket. He was prepared for streakers on stage. He was prepared for political rants. He was prepared for Will Smith running up and slapping the crud out of somebody. But not this.

Quan continues, shielding the statue with his body now. “Did you see Ryan Gosling in that ‘Barbie’ movie?” he says. “Also, hey, Robert DeNiro. I mean, let’s be serious here.”

Hamilton orders the orchestra to play everybody off stage ASAP. The network feed drops to a commercial. Naturally, it’s for AT&T. The one where Shai Gilgeous-Alexander attempts to sing in tune.

Shaquille O’Neal — F-minus

The GTW crew really, really wrestled with this one. Not in reaching a consensus, mind you. But in which of the 17 levels of pure Diesel wrong we were going to focus on first.

Now Shaq’s entitled to his opinion, of course. In fact, that’s his job. Oh, we get that.

A couple of rebels up at HQ even cheekily applauded the legendary big man for daring to say the quiet part — that some icons of the NBA do not respect Nikola Jokic, don’t consider him a worthy peer or successor, and don’t want the Joker crashing the GOAT club — out loud.

But Shaq had no business saying that out loud on that Warner Bros. Discovery set, on live TV, after the envelope was opened and the league, at that moment, was trying to celebrate its new royalty. Wrong argument. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

If O’Neal wanted to make a case for SGA, be our guest. Gilgeous-Alexander is a bona fide superstar, a joy to watch, a beast to defend and a worthy successor to the LeBrons and Stephs, one of the flag-bearers for the NBA over the next decade-and-a-half.

But you don’t make that specific argument, right then and there. Shaq thought he was making a bold, brave political stand against the voters and the process while leading the SGA hype train. He sounded like the vice principal at the prom dance reading a card with the results for the royalty vote over the PA, then immediately demanding a recount.