Dwight Howard was on Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM in Brooklyn podcast recently for a candid conversation on all things basketball. About an hour into the conversation, co-host Kid Mero decided to bring up the topic of the dominant center’s ongoing beef with Shaquille O’Neal.
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Howard showed no hesitation in getting into the topic. On the contrary, he was eager to let everyone know that he had played no part in creating this online feud with Shaq. Howard even claimed that he he has no idea how it all started.
“I have no idea where it came from. I have seen stuff ever since I was in Orlando about me trying to take ‘Superman’ and things like that, but the Superman for me came from all the things I was doing in the community. It came from me jumping over teammates, me doing stuff in the weight room…it wasn’t because I went around boasting about me being Superman,” Howard said.
The 39-year-old claimed that he has no fascination with the moniker ‘Superman’, which is supposedly the root cause of the beef. The nickname is just something people associated with him because of his superhuman activities on the court. “I don’t run around and say I’m Superman,” Howard added.
“It’s insecurity…you can call it what it is. When you speak on another man or female in any negative light, I feel like that’s insecurity,” Howard concluded.
The former Orlando Magic center believes that Shaq’s prolonged onslaught on him is born completely out of insecurity, especially since he has done nothing to provoke such behavior. The big fella probably couldn’t accept the rise of Dwight Howard at a time when he was on the decline in the NBA.
On the other hand, Shaq has always maintained that he had a completely different motive in calling out Howard.
Shaq claimed he wanted Howard to be Superman
Shaq once claimed on his Big Podcast that he was only hard on Dwight Howard because he wanted the then up-and-coming center to really become dominant in the NBA. So he was surprised when Howard was offended by his remarks.
That’s when Shaq decided to pump the brakes on his criticism. “I thought it was a rites of passage thing. Because Kareem and Wilt did the same to me,” Shaq added.
The big fella mentioned how he was motivated to perform after Wilt Chamberlain snubbed him once at a restaurant. That’s why he tried to do the same with Howard.
