In the NBA, much like any other sport, your season is only considered a success if you win a championship. Everything else is generally considered a failure. Almost every successful player in the history of the game went through that supposed ‘failure’ to attain success. Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most celebrated players in the NBA. In his 2001 book, “Shaq Talks Back,” he talked about the same as well, a good 22 years before Giannis Antetokounmpo did so.
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After finishing the season with the best record in the league in the 2022-23 season, Milwaukee Bucks got eliminated from the 1st round of the 2023 Playoffs at the hands of the 8th seed Miami Heat. And after they lost the series, Giannis gave a passionate speech when a reporter asked him if the season was a failure.
— rayfuentes (@Ray_Fuentes1111) May 18, 2023
Many casuals took it as an inspiring speech and circulated it as a quote on their socials. On the other hand, the sports media, which includes numerous former players, valiantly criticized the Greek international. Surprisingly, Shaq was among the criticizers as well. Before we talk about that, let’s get to what he had to say about failure back when he was a player.
Before Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shaquille O’Neal also had the same views about ‘failure’
Shaq won his first NBA title in 2000. He was on his way to winning a few more when he released a book in April 2001, where he gave his opinion on winning and losing.
“I still don’t understand why you have to win it all to be considered doing your job in sports. The guys on the other twenty-eight teams are losers? I’m sorry. That’s not right. And until we get more perspective and understand that, you’re going to have a lot more young kids wondering why everyone is criticizing and not allowing them time to grow up and learn to be a champion,” wrote O’Neal in Shaq Talks Back.
O’Neal had been swept 5 times in the Playoffs before finally winning his first title in 2000. His love for the sport, skill, fitness, and will to win, everything had been questioned before he shut them all up with his 1st of 3 Finals MVPs.
Making it to the (1995) Finals after defeating Michael Jordan and the Bulls just in his 3rd year in the league, should have been a massive achievement in itself. But the only thing that mattered to the media was ‘Shaq got swept in the Finals’.
That was the reason why he addressed it in his book. However, 22 years later O’Neal feels differently.
Analyst Shaq believes Giannis’ season was a failure
After Antetokounmpo had said his bit, The Big Aristotle, who now has one of the biggest platforms in sports media with the NBA on TNT, disagreed with the 2021 Finals MVP.
“He’s not a failure of a player, but is it a failure of a season? I would say yes.”
-Shaq on Giannis and the Bucks falling in the first round to the Heat pic.twitter.com/XKRt2GNfmv
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 27, 2023
Surprisingly, nobody on the Inside the NBA crew called him out for it. Usually, neither Charles Barkley nor Kenny Smith are hesitant to do so.
And guess when he brought his own failure to the fore and sympathized with a player? When LeBron James got swept in the Western Conference Finals. The bias in the media is quite astounding, and now Shaquille O’Neal is a part of it.
