Shaquille O’Neal is simply hilarious. His antics and shenanigans on TNT are just must-watch television for basketball fans all over the world. Hell, even non-basketball fans would laugh their pants off by listening to the big fella from time to time.
What most people don’t know about Shaq is that he’s actually quite a smart and well-educated man. He’s thrived in multiple endeavors outside of basketball and has a higher level of culture than the average person. However, it seems like speaking Greek isn’t one of his many hidden talents.
Shaq tried to congratulate Giannis Antetokounmpo in Greek for winning his first-ever Defensive Player of the Year Award but failed miserably. The Greek Freek couldn’t understand a single word of what Shaq was saying and was visibly confused.
O’Neal doubled down on his efforts of speaking fluent Greek and said it again slowly, and apparently, he at least nailed the ‘Congratulations’ part. That’s a bit of an irony, considering one of his many nicknames is actually ‘The Big Aristotle’.
Needless to say, everybody on the set cracked up immediately after Shaq tried to speak Greek. I mean, the guy has literally struggled to say Antetokounmpo’s name since he made it to the league, what made him think that he could congratulate him in Greek on live television?
Now, in all seriousness, Giannis deserves to be highly praised for what he’s done this season. He’s one of the few players to win both the Defensive Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player award, and he’s on pace to join Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon as the only ones to win more than one of those awards and the only players to do it on the very same season.
Giannis led the DPOY voting this year and it wasn’t even close, even though both Anthony Davis and Rudy Gobert also had a chance. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is Συγχαρητήρια Giannis!
