“Don’t Care if It’s Michael Jordan on Your Back, You Throw It Down!”: Shaquille O’Neal Fires Back at Ben Simmons for His Comments

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal responds to his ‘LSU Brother’ Ben Simmons, calls him out for making excuses and more

A few days ago, Ben Simmons decided to stir up a lot of old tea yet again. Recently, Simmons was a guest on JJ Redick’s The Old Man and The Three podcast. This is his first such appearance since the Philly debacle, and well, a lot of drama that we thought was done and dusted, had been brought up again.

Simmons called out his former Head Coach, Doc Rivers, and his former teammate Joel Embiid. He talked about his mental health struggles, and more. Carrying on, he went to call out Shaquille O’Neal for never even making an effort to reach out to him. Instead, he was hurt that Shaq was ‘talking sh*t’ about him.

Ben Simmons calls out Shaq for exposing his DMs

“When I was dealing with everything going on, I actually messaged him. … It’s been months since I been dealing with this. You ain’t reached out once and say, ‘Hey, you okay? What’s going on?’” https://t.co/rhthBRbKVD

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) September 22, 2022

Also Read: $6 million Ben Simmons addresses betrayal from his people, mental health, and making Nets debut

Shaq was made aware of these comments in the latest episode of the Big Podcast, and he responded in a very Shaq-like way.

Shaquille O’Neal responds to Ben Simmons and his claims

Shaquille O’Neal, as we know him, has always been someone who doesn’t take kindly to being criticized, especially when he didn’t do anything wrong. To start things off, he talked about Simmons talking about passing up the layup because of Trae Young. In case you don’t know this infamous play, watch it here:

Simmons claimed he didn’t know it was Trae coming at him, else he would’ve taken the ball to the bucket. Shaq did not like this answer, and slammed the former Sixers’ star.

“That’s an excuse, I don’t give a damn if MJ is on your back… you can fool people some of the time, but you can’t fool me!” 👀🔥

–@shaq responding to Ben Simmons’ comments via The Big Podcast w/ Shaq

Glad there’s someone who will speak the truth.#HereTheyCome #Sixers 🔵🔴 pic.twitter.com/67NUpNx4HG

— RB (@RBPhillyTake) September 24, 2022

Carrying on, he spoke about the criticism Simmons had for O’Neal.

“Everybody goes through struggles. But this the game we play, this is the life we live. You’re going to take criticism. They pay us a lot of money, somehow you have to deal with it.”

Shaq responds to Ben Simmons calling him a hater 😳pic.twitter.com/VvSJhL40kU

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) September 25, 2022

Also Read: “You might be Kobe Bryant, but I’m the Shaq!” : Shaquille O’Neal speaks out on how he would provoke the Black Mamba

Shaq wasn’t wrong in this entire situation. To call him out like that, it seems Ben was chasing the clicks here, not Shaq.