In a recent appearance on ‘The OGs Show,’ 4x NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal revealed the status of his relationship with Rudy Gobert. The two have gone at at other for years now but O’Neal confirmed this week that it’s nothing personal between him and all of the bigs who he critiques on a daily basis.
“You know, it’s not personal cause I’ve been in the trenches with you,” O’Neal said in a chat with Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem. “A lot of these big men, when I put up these challenges, they fail the test, cause they respond. They’re sensitive. You know, when I speak, I try to speak from facts. It may come out wrong and you may think I’m hating but his comments about ‘You’re trying to stay relevant’, like motherf****r I’ve got 15 commercials. The f**k you talking about? I want you to protect this thing of ours.”
Shaquille O’Neal has more experience than most when it comes to dominating and winning at the highest level. Over 19 years in the NBA, O’Neal was a 4x champion, 1x MVP, and 15x All-Star. In his NBA career, he averaged 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game in stints for the Magic, Heat, Lakers, Suns, Cavaliers, and Celtics.
Since his retirement in 2011, O’Neal has found arguably even more success as an NBA media personality. After years of appearances on ‘Inside the NBA’ O’Neal established himself as an important and critical member of the show and an iconic face of NBA television.
Of course, his extensive media coverage has often come at the expense of the modern players. Due to his dominant and stubborn playstyle, O’Neal put that standard on every star big man who has followed him, from Dwight Howard and Joel Embiid to Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert. He often takes a tough-love approach in order to challenge them to be their best, just like the OG legends did for him back in the day.
Occasionally, however, Shaq can cross the line with his tactics and, in the case of Gobert, there seems to be real hatred at play from both sides. Over the years, the Diesel has gone out of his way to scrutinize Gobert whether it’s for his “overpriced” salary or his “overrated” skills as a center.
Recently, Shaq has called Gobert the “worst NBA player in history” and said that he’s scammed teams out of over $200 million. To say that tensions are high between the two might be an understatement, especially given how Gobert has responded to some of these verbal attacks.
Despite how it might look, O’Neal claims that it’s nothing personal. In fact, Shaq says that the whole thing is just his way of challenging Gobert to rise to the occasion and prove him wrong. Clearly, Rudy has not passed the test, and instead of using Shaq’s words as motivation, he’s taking it as an insult meant to discredit his character.
Whether you love or hate his methods, Shaq is not going to change things now after so much success doing things his way. The best that Rudy, or any other player trapped in O’Neal’s crosshairs, can do is to not take it personally and respond with dominant play on the court instead of a fiery comeback on social media.
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