JaVale McGee was a guest on Dwight Howard’s podcast recently. During the show, the hosts brought up media misconceptions, and McGee spoke about how Shaquille O’Neal‘s ‘Shaqtin A Fool’ segments convinced fans and teams that he wasn’t a good player, which was very damaging to his reputation.
“I didn’t understand how strong the media was, and I didn’t understand that people took it serious. This game, I did one bad play but I had 15 and 6 blocks. But y’all didn’t show none of that. People were like ‘He’s horrible. Why’s he even in the league?’. I was like ‘Oh sh*t, people think I’m really bad. They don’t think I’m a good player’.”
“Kids coming up to me – ‘Ahh, Shaqtin A Fool!’. Then the NBA started getting behind it too. To where they started making a whole piece about it. One episode, it was just top five of me.”
“You got the WWE, right? You got the villain and you got the good guy. But both are getting paid. So I’m like – Okay, I can be that clown you want me to be, but you’re going to have to pay me clown money, then. You’re not about to pay me mediocre money and disrespect me and push my career down the hill…”
McGee was the butt of the joke constantly on Shaquille O’Neal’s ‘Shaqtin A Fool’ segments on Inside The NBA. The segment would feature mistakes, flubs, and funny moments from players during games. What was initially intended as a light-hearted rib at players became very personal and targeted toward McGee.
McGee, despite being a solid big man in the NBA, was consistently being slammed by Shaquille O’Neal in these segments, with Shaq once even dedicating an entire segment solely towards McGee’s mistakes and bad moments. You can watch a compilation of their exchanges below.
Things Got Intense Between Shaq And McGee
Shaquille O’Neal definitely targeted JaVale McGee and sometimes crossed the line. In the 2013-14 NBA season, JaVale McGee played just five games after fracturing his tibia. But he was highlighted in the segment four times during the season. Even when there were no lowlights possible, Shaq continued to take shots at McGee.
So much so, that after one too many digs, JaVale clapped back by implying Shaquille O’Neal was a minstrel, someone who acted as an entertainer or jester for the royalty in the olden days.
By the time McGee was on the Warriors, things got so heated that the franchise had to reach out to TNT, the broadcast partner of Inside The NBA to complain about the negative coverage McGee was receiving.
In the end, it was Shaquille O’Neal’s mother who told him to back off McGee. But she wasn’t the only mother to chime in, as JaVale’s mom, Pam McGee, a great basketball player in her own right, also called out O’Neal for his childish antics.
Shaq backed off from critiquing McGee, and McGee would go on to win three NBA championships, two with the Warriors, and then one with the Lakers later in his career. While McGee would eventually find success in his career, it couldn’t have been easy taking all of the slander from Shaquille O’Neal.
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