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“Don’t Have Beef With Kevin Durant”: Shaquille O’Neal Explains His Thought Process During Twitter Exchange With The Slim Reaper

Amulya Shekhar
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"Don't Have Beef With Kevin Durant": Shaquille O'Neal Explains His Thought Process During Twitter Exchange With The Slim Reaper

Given their talent levels as players, Kevin Durant and Shaquille O’Neal can show notoriously thin skin. While KD takes to Twitter to publicize his opinions, Shaq uses his platform on TNT to do the same thing.

The two of them got into a Twitter exchange of sorts a couple of months back. Shaq admitted to not knowing who Rui Hachimura was, before he got traded to LA on TNT. Kevin Durant posted a tweet asking if O’Neal ‘doesn’t know ball’.

Shaq responded with a pretty good joke at the expense of KD’s fashion sense. He also got in an insult about Durant not being a ‘bus driver’ for his rings.

Durant admitted that he ‘got cooked for asking a simple question’ in a response to Shaq’s tweet. O’Neal also seemed to get extra-defensive, posting a tweet about his own accomplishments.

Shaquille O’Neal denies having beef with Kevin Durant

O’Neal was recently a guest on the I AM ATHLETE YouTube show, featuring the likes of Ashley Nicole Moss and Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones. He talked about a few contemporary NBA topics rather than speaking about his own career.

One of the questions O’Neal fielded was related to his recent Twitter showdown with KD. Shaq maintained that he doesn’t have any animosity specifically toward the Slim Reaper:

“I don’t have beef with KD (Kevin Durant). He asked me a question and I answered it. Let me tell y’all something about me. I wanna hang out with y’all, but I wanna hang out with them.”

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“He said that Shaq knows ball, so you can take that 2 kinds of ways. I thought he was being funny, so I was being funny. That’s it. I ain’t got no problems with nobody.”

What does KD’s legacy look like if he wins a title this season?

Kevin Durant has arguably been the best player in NBA history at teaming up with talented teammates. He’s been on 3 different teams with 3 different MVPs before this, and he’s joined the Suns who have CP3, Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.

Having said this, there’s still a sizeable gap between his caliber of play and that of Booker – their second-best player. If the Suns manage to go all the way to an NBA title, it would be because of KD’s presence.

Winning this championship would definitely go some way in alleviating the damage that KD’s image has taken over the years.

About the author

Amulya Shekhar

Amulya Shekhar

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Amulya Shekhar is a sports junkie who thrives on the thrills and frills of live sports action across basketball, football (the American variant works too), parkour, adventure sports. He believes sports connect us to our best selves, and he hopes to help people experience sports more holistically.

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