Shaquille O’Neal continues to have no interest in mending fences with Dwight Howard. On the latest episode of the Big Podcast with Shaq, O’Neal fired shots at Howard when co-host Adam LefKoe brought up his name while discussing how the title-winning 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers were quickly broken up.
“He was a bus rider,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal then twisted the knife even further when guest O’Shea Jackson brought up JaVale McGee’s name.
“Hold on, JaVale McGee? He gets my respect,” O’Neal stated. “But that other motherf*****s bus riders. … On some people, he can pull that, ‘Oh, I got a championship.’ Not with the motherf*****g Don Dada. He can’t pull that s*** with me.”
O’Neal certainly loses some credibility when he hypes up McGee but clowns Howard. They were both role players on that Lakers team and, in fact, you could easily argue that the latter played a bigger part in that triumph.
Howard averaged 7.5 points, 7.3 rebounds, 0.7 assists, 0.4 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game for the Lakers in the 2019-20 regular season. McGee, meanwhile, was a starter but only put up 6.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.5 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game.
It was a similar story in the playoffs too. Howard averaged 5.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.4 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in the postseason while McGee put up 2.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.1 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game.
For O’Neal to show respect to McGee and not to Howard just makes him come across as incredibly petty. This isn’t really a surprise, though, as he tends to lose all objectivity when talking about Howard.
This beef appears to have started over Howard embracing the “Superman” nickname that O’Neal once had. The latter did not take kindly to it and has been firing shots at the former for over a decade now.
Back in September, O’Neal and Howard even got into a heated exchange over the “Superman” nickname. It’s just mind-boggling how something that trivial can cause such a problem.
O’Neal spoke on the topic during this episode of the podcast too after Jackson revealed he had been on Howard’s podcast a day earlier. Dwight had introduced himself as Superman in it and Jackson wanted to let Shaq know about it.
“I’m the original Superman,” O’Neal said. “… My whole thing with him is if you’re gonna call yourself me, do more than me or do what I’ve done. Nowhere close. But then from a street sense, if you call yourself Superman, everybody know what I’m talking about, I don’t want to be called Superman.”
“I’m glad you did his podcast,” O’Neal later added. “He’s a nice young man and I wish him well.”
Those might be the kindest things O’Neal has said about Howard in a while. It’s a shame that he continues to still be so offended about that nickname all these years later.
Howard has publicly stated he wants to end this beef on multiple occasions but O’Neal has no interest in doing so. Dwight appears to have given up hope by now and you can’t really blame him.
As for that title Howard won in 2020, whether O’Neal respects it or not, the fact remains he is a champion and can be proud of it as well.
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