“Shaqtin’ A Fool was slowly chipping at my reputation”: 3x NBA Champion JaVale McGee opens up about the impact the segment had on his career, and calling out Shaquille O’Neal

Phoenix Suns’ big JaVale McGee opens up about Shaqtin’ A Fool, and how it affected his career as a young player in the NBA

There are times in every NBA players’ career, where they may mess up. Most players manage to avoid making mistakes that may be considered meme-worthy. However, there are some players who manage to goof up a lot. They usually end up on segments like ‘Shaqtin’ A Fool’.

While it is fun to watch such segments, getting featured one too many times on it can impact the player negatively. One such player, who has made a lot of Shaqtin’ A Fool appearance is JaVale McGee. During the early parts of his career, McGee had a lot of features on the Inside the NBA segment. Those did not sit right with him.

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JaVale McGee talks about how Shaqtin’ A Fool impacted his career

A 3x NBA Champion, and a recent Olympic Gold Medalist, JaVale McGee has had quite the career. The 33-year-old big was recently on Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe. There he discussed a few things, including his infamous Shaqtin’ A Fool features.

“The thing about that whole Shaqtin’ a Fool era of when I was on there is I didn’t realize what it was doing to my career until I got started to move on to other teams,” 

“And I would talk to other coaches and middle of the year they’d be like ‘I’ve always seen that Shaqtin’ a Fool stuff and had a different mental review and I never knew like you’re a smart kid. You’re extremely vocal, you’re a great basketball player.’ It was slowly chipping away at my reputation. As a young 24-year-old athletic basketball player, young, excited, it was just slowly chipping away,” he added.

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McGee was a laughing stock in the league, despite his high basketball IQ. However, all that changed when Head Coach Steve Kerr took a chance with McGee and the Warriors. The rest, as they say, is history. McGee won two rings with the Warriors, continued to move on to the Lakers, and win a ring with them.