Bringing Up The NBA’s Need To Changes Rules For Shaquille O’Neal, Gilbert Arenas Firmly Believes Nikola Jokic Isn’t As Dominant As ‘The Big Aristotle’

Gilbert Arenas believes that despite Nikola Jokic’s incredible NBA achievements thus far, he needs to do more to pass Shaquille O’Neal’s legacy as a big man. Speaking on a recent episode of his Gil’s Arena podcast, the former Wizards forward was asked whether Jokic would be regarded as the most dominant big man if he can average a triple-double for a few more seasons.

While Arenas seemed to immediately appreciate what Jokic has done, he seemed to believe that the Serbian still needs to do more to be compared to Shaq. The 41-year-old talked about how the LA Lakers legend had a defensive respect that meant people were well aware he could go for 40-50 points every night if he got the ball enough.

Arenas talked about how teams were forced to change the way they defended and operated to cope with O’Neal. “You have to give it to the dude they had to change rules for. Like when you are talking about making a claim, they had to make a rule, they had to fake like a zone, for this team, offensive, we going to move the ball, it was to stop someone, because they couldn’t stop him,” he said. 

Gilbert Arenas then went on to talk about how teams were forced to look for big defenders to have a chance against Shaq. He hilariously claimed that coaches were pulling players from their jobs to find a way to stop Shaquille. “You had to track, you had to go down and double, they had to ‘hey, what do you working at, you big.’ They had to, like I need you on this team I mean guard this dude, You can’t take that away,” Arenas claimed.

Arenas drove his point home by claiming that Jokic did not scare defenders into believing he could score 40 or 50 points. “When he started getting like defensive respect, that Shaq was getting, like right now we are giving him that for the passing part of it. But when he has the ball is anyone scared that he is going to give 40 or 50 every night,” he claimed.

Arenas hilarious concluded by saying that Jokic could not, at present, “f**k the entire team up,” That was the kind of impact O’Neal used to regularly have, during his playing days.

Nikola Jokic had earlier claimed Shaquille O’Neal cannot guard him

Back in 2018, Nikola Jokic had hilariously claimed that Shaquille O’Neal could not guard him. Very confident about his skills even before he got his first All-Star appearance in 2019, Jokic was asked about how he would far in a 1-on-1 against Shaq, and vice versa.

“He can’t guard me!”, Jokic had confidently proclaimed, before going into detail about the first time he saw O’neal. Jokic claimed that he had seen Shaq during a Team USA vs Team World All-Star game.

While the now 28-year-old was taken aback by O’Neal’s size, he still seemed confident in his ability to take on the Lakers legend. Whether he can achieve the same kind of dominance, in Gilbert Arenas’ eyes will be dependant on how the rest of Jokic’s career goes.