Shaquille O’Neal has been making a lot of headlines in recent days, as he keeps throwing shades at modern-day NBA centers. Shaq was one of the most dominant players the NBA has seen after winning a lot of trophies and individual awards in his career.
He was a problem on the court and now is trying to become a problem for the new centers in the league. Shaq recently attacked Rudy Gobert and his 5-year, $200 million contract extension with the Utah Jazz. Shaq appeared on a podcast talking about Gobert and made a big joke about him and his new deal, claiming that kids around the world could be inspired by him to average 11 points per game and still get paid $200 million.
This isn’t new for Shaq, who has been criticizing centers for a long time now and that doesn’t seem to be stopping in the near future. HoopsNation presents a big question about Shaq and all these comments. “Is he becoming envious of the money today’s centers are getting or is he tryna stay relevant within the NBA community?”
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Well, it looks like it has something to do with money. During his entire career, Shaq earned $286 million. That is in 19 seasons what Gobert signed to earn in five years with the Jazz. His comments have been very harsh whenever a player has signed a new deal.
Before going against Gobert, he had said something similar about Karl-Anthony Towns. After he signed a max contract, O’Neal went after him with everything he had.
“He got max dollars. Now he gotta pull his panties up and play,” he said in reference to KAT.
His beef with Dwight Howard has been well documented, too, as Shaq and Dwight have engaged in a feud that hasn’t stopped. After the 2019/20 NBA season was over and the Los Angeles Lakers won the championship, he seemingly took a shot at Howard for celebrating like he earned the MVP award. He had more beef on that Lakers team, including JaVale McGee, who revealed he talked with Howard about that as soon as they met on the Lakers.
“We did. I asked him. I was like, ‘Hey, did you want to fight Shaq?’ He was like, ‘Man I did, man!’ I was like, ‘Man I did too,’ but I was like, ‘There’s two things we’ve got to worry about. He’s a cop, so if we hurt him we’re going to jail. And two, if Shaq gets a hold of us, it’s over with. You’ve got to hit him and move, because if not? If Shaq gets you? It’s over with.”
Shaq also attacked DeAndre Jordan, claiming that he was good only because he was part of the Los Angeles Clippers.
“He plays for a good team. Put him in Milwaukee, you’ll never hear from him.”
It looks like he has some kind of agenda against centers in the NBA right now. Back in March, as the league was trying to find a solution for the COVID-19 outbreak, O’Neal went after everybody, claiming that NBA centers are “soft” right now.
“It depends on what type of big man you’re talking about,” Shaq said. “See the title ‘big man’ is anyone at the five position, right? So you know, I hear people say oh big guys can shoot. The game is evolving…us older big guys don’t look at it as evolving. We look at it as soft.”
This doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon and Shaq is ready to attack whoever he wants. When it comes to championships, the only one that actually won among all these men is Dwight Howard and that happened a couple of months ago. Nobody can tell him anything about championships, but in terms of career earnings, things are very different for the Big Diesel.
