Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA legend, recently recorded an episode of ‘The Big Podcast’ with Adam Lefkoe and Iman Shumpert, where he spoke about New York’s NBA championship run this year in a manner that left the former Knicks player Shumpert feeling unsettled.
“I have four championships. Two of them were luck… Don’t you think the next championship was a little lucky this year?” O’Neal asked Shumpert.
“If you don’t get that tip, it’s over,” said O’Neal while recalling OG Anunoby’s famous tip-in. “Let me finish. If you don’t get that tip, you don’t win that game. If dumba– Fox don’t try to f–king score with eight seconds left and OG don’t get the block, that’s two incidents right there.”
“If they don’t let the 29-point lead go. I’m just saying it was a little bit of luck in there,” O’Neal added.
Meanwhile, Shumpert looked at O’Neal in confusion, refused his claims, and provided counterarguments.
“Jalen Brunson was hurt,” Shumpert said before claiming the Knicks would have won in six games if they failed to complete the 29-point comeback. “So they were lucky that they were born before these n—-s? That’s crazy,” he added to question O’Neal’s statement.
The NBA legend went on to admit that his first NBA championship with the Lakers (2000) and the final one he got with the Heat (2004) both had an element of luck involved.
“If we didn’t win that Game 7, they would have probably traded me like they did after I won that final championship,” said O’Neal as he recalled his experience with the Lakers against the Trail Blazers in the 2000 Western Conference Finals.
“Because remember, those MFers came back, we were up 3-1, and they were suddenly blowing us out. If we didn’t win that Game 7, there would be no Shaq and Kobe,” O’Neal concluded.
So clearly O’Neal believes that even the greatest things in history can come out of situations involving a certain level of luck that plays in the winner’s favor.
But despite feeling this way about their championship run, O’Neal seemingly feels Jalen Brunson has done a lot to earn his respect with this championship.
During his recent appearance on the ‘Old Man and the Three’ podcast, O’Neal spoke about how Brunson reminded him of Kobe Bryant recently. He even went as far as to claim that he knew after a conversation with Brunson that the Knicks are going to win the championship.
“Kenny and I cornered (Brunson). We had a show right before the playoffs, and I like to mess with guys. I said, ‘Hey man, you going to win a championship this year?’ He had that look in his eye like when I used to ask Kobe,” said O’Neal about his interaction with Brunson.
“Like he really had that look where I was like ‘Hey, they were going to do it.’ And then when they played Atlanta and lost those games, I got nervous. But the way they stepped up, came back, and were beating teams, they actually did it the right way.”
So it seems a bit contradictory for O’Neal to say that he knew the Knicks would win even before the playoffs but felt they got lucky at the end.
Brunson averaged 28.4 points, 6.1 assists, and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 46.5% from the field and 36.3% from behind the three-point line in the 19 games that the Knicks played in the postseason. To pull off such a performance with an injured hand through the playoffs is not an element of luck.
Jalen Brunson has been vocal about his die-hard fandom of Kobe Bryant throughout his career. So for O’Neal to think Brunson’s demeanor resembled Bryant’s is not out of the ordinary in terms of the lifestyle influence he’s had on him. But it is a bit shocking to hear that O’Neal thinks the Knicks got lucky with the championship.
Do you think O’Neal is discrediting the Knicks’ championship? Or is he simply pushing them to win a second one and prove him wrong? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
