Shaquille O’Neal was considered a force of nature throughout his career in the NBA, an unstoppable beast in the paint who would have his way with any player who dared to take him on. His dominance led Shaq to spearhead a three-peat alongside Kobe Bryant for the Los Angeles Lakers which cemented his legacy as one of the greatest players to ever do it in the NBA.
However, the issue with O’Neal was his inability to maintain his conditioning, Shaq would go on to struggle with several injuries and his weight later in his career as he bounced around to a few teams following his last title win with the Miami Heat. Shaq played for Phoenix, Cleveland and Boston in 3 years before retiring from the league entirely and his stint with the Celtics especially didn’t earn him any fans.
He averaged a career-low of 9.2 points per game, playing just 37 times and averaging just about 20 minutes a game. Shaq had also visibly put on weight by this time and was slow and bogged down by his injuries. While it may have been understandable why it turned out this way in hindsight, it still left Boston fans seething. And it came back to haunt him on his ‘The Big Podcast‘, with comedian Bubba Dub calling him out for his poor play in Boston.
“Aye, Shaq, when you were at the Boston Celtics, you were trash. He was terrible.”
There are not many who would dare to say this to Shaq to his face but Bubba seems to have walked away from the encounter just fine. Even O’Neal himself would admit that his stint with the Celtics was far from the best displays of his career he played just 12 minutes in 2 games during the playoffs that season. It’s no wonder that Shaq retired soon after and now NBA fans all collectively try to forget some of the performances in the later years of his career.
