“I’m a Guy Bench Pressing 600lbs!”: Shaquille O’Neal Reacts to Wilt Chamberlain’s Explanation on Why He Wouldn’t Be Great in His Era

Shaquille O’Neal is undoubtedly one of the greatest ever to do it. During his time in the NBA, it’s like the man would forget his opponents had families. And with that good and forgotten, it’s like he deemed it right to simply humiliate these grown men with the whole world watching.

Your best chance against the Shaq Diesel was probably not trash-talking him whatsoever, and hoping he wasn’t feeling particularly motivated that day. After all, it did really happen. When you’re that good at what you do, there are bound to be days like that every once in a while.

But, if Wilt Chamberlain is to be believed, he is only that good because of the era he played in. And he didn’t just whisper it to one of his friends, no. He once got on a talk show to announce it to the world, something the man himself responded to very recently.

What did Wilt Chamberlain say about Shaquille O’Neal?

During the prime of Shaquille O’Neal’s career, Wilt Chamberlain was very much in the golden years of his retirement. And during this time, the man would often appear on different talk shows, where he’d be asked to talk about basketball over and over again.

On one such appearance, the man was asked to speak on Shaq, and what his opinion was on his greatness. And in response, the man had quite a shocking response. Here is what he said.

“He (Shaquille O’Neal) plays an entirely different basketball game. He uses his physicality, and he’s a big strong young man, and that works well in today’s game. If he was facing me, or other guys of my time, not so good. I’m a guy bench pressing 600 lbs…”

It does seem a bit harsh to say his game wouldn’t be suited to Wilt Chamberlain’s era. After all, that was exactly what was needed during both their eras. And yes, while there was somewhat of a presence of skill too, it wasn’t something far different from what was needed in Shaq’s era. So yes, while O’Neal wouldn’t have it quite as easy, something tells us Wilt would be having fits too.

What did Shaquille O’Neal have to say about the whole thing?

Shaquille O’Neal has always had an often lot of respect for the greats that came before him, something that clearly showed on this occasion too. After all, here was a man essentially questioning his greatness during what was his prime in the NBA. And yet, here is all he did.

In other words, he just silently shared it on his story. Perhaps, it could be a message to the big men of today to use the raw strength of their bodies more often. Or maybe the man was just happy Wilt was talking about him on talk shows. Frankly here, it could go either way.