Cleveland Browns quarterback Jameis Winston received the call from Fox Sports to moonlight as their digital correspondent for the biggest weekend in football. As rookies often do, the first-time reporter sought advice from his veterans — in this case, it was player-turned-analyst Shaquille O’Neal.
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During Super Bowl weekend in New Orleans, Winston asked the four-time NBA champion for advice on being a media personality. “You just have to be careful what you say,” O’Neal told the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner.
“Because, being that you’re on both sides, our side is going to get sensitive when you give your ‘professional opinion’. Like you don’t know what you’re talking about, like you’ve never been a top-rated quarterback. So, when you talk about other quarterbacks, our side may get a little sensitive,” Shaq added.
Clearly, the 2000 NBA MVP knows a thing or two about this. The famed founder of the ‘Big Man Alliance’ has rubbed many professional hoopers the wrong way with his ‘professional opinions’, and he warned Winston that it simply comes with the territory.
While there is truth to that — doing his job led Charles Barkley to lose Michael Jordan as a friend, after all — Shaq has been particularly divisive with his comments about modern NBA bigs. Perhaps nobody is as familiar with O’Neal’s critiques as Rudy Gobert.
In 2024, the Diesel went as far as calling him a ‘bum’ during an interview with Complex Sports. However, as Shaq told Jameis, his perspective was informed by his own experiences as an athlete.
“There’s a reason why I walk funny and why I can’t turn my neck and why I can’t do it because I played for my [$120 million]. So you got guys like him that f**k the system over and they’re making all this money and they can’t f***ing play. So I don’t respect guys like that,” Diesel told his son, Myles O’Neal.
No matter how valid one may find his comments though, it’s hard to deny that Shaq has built a reputation for looking down at the next generation. From Dwight Howard to JaVale McGee and Joel Embiid, the 7-footer has come for them all.
However, as the 15-time All-Star shared with Winston, he is growing frustrated with the responses from NBA players. Last month, O’Neal took to his podcast to echo many of the same sentiments he shared over the Super Bowl weekend.
“Should I stop talking about big men in general? Since they get all sensitive?” Shaq asked his TNT colleague, Adam Lefkoe. “‘Cause I can kill all they a**es right now, mentally. Trust me.”
Lefkoe, playing the Devil’s Advocate, advised O’Neal to reach out to the next generation and give them feedback directly instead of critiquing them on air. According to Shaq though, that goes against his intended goal of becoming the chip on their shoulder.
“Why would I do that? Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] ain’t message me on the side. He just made me become greater. Mr. Kareem, thank you for always jumping to being on my case. Mr. [Bill] Russell, Wilt [Chamberlain], Hakeem [Olajuwon], all you guys that said I wasn’t going to make it, I appreciate you guys for the motivation,” Shaq explained.
This is the legacy O’Neal wants to have with the next generation of the NBA’s big men. Unfortunately for him, the times have changed, and modern athletes seem more frustrated than inspired by the legends who came before them. We’ll find out if Jameis Winston follows the same path when he hangs up his boots.
