Shaq: I failed drug test at '96 Olympics after eating poppyseed muffin

Shaquille O'Neal says a poppyseed muffin caused him to test positive for cocaine at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

The Hall of Famer shared the wild story Thursday on TNT's "Inside the NBA" while discussing Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis' suspension for violating the league's anti-drug policy.

"I tested positive for cocaine," O'Neal told his co-hosts. "And I was like hold on, hold on, hold on. First of all, the Sarge would kill me. My mother'd kill me. I've never done nothing like that. Then they did the research, and the poppy seed muffins have the same derivatives as cocaine.

"So that's the only problem I have with the NBA. They tell you not to take this, this, and that, but something that's not on the list can be a derivative of something that you're not supposed to take and you can mess up that way."

O'Neal was allowed to compete at the 1996 Games and helped the United States men's national basketball team take home a gold medal.

Portis was suspended for 25 games without pay by the NBA on Thursday after testing positive for Tramadol, a pain medication that's on the league's banned substances list. His agent, Mark Bartelstein, said Portis unintentionally took Tramadol thinking it was a different pain medication called Toradol.