When Phil Jackson asked Shaquille O’Neal to read Aristotle, he was hoping the big man would come out of it with the desire to work on his free throw shooting. Instead, Shaq created the moniker ‘Big Aristotle’. The title would become even more ironic when O’Neal started claiming that the Earth was flat.
Advertisement
The four-time NBA champion joined his stepson, Myles O’Neal on Complex’s GOAT Talk, where they debated the best and worst things ever. When the conversation landed on conspiracy theories, Shaq had to make an admission.
“This is a true story. I said the Earth was flat one time and I lost a f***ing big deal from that. Cause the haters, there was like 500,000 hate mail,” O’Neal recalled during the conversation. He added that the money he lost was a “big deal, $20 million dollars.”
Unfortunately, this is true. During a 2017 episode of ‘The Big Podcast with Shaq’, Shaquille O’Neal repeatedly claimed that the Earth was indeed flat. What’s more, in true Aristotelian fashion, he provided his own version of proof. He plainly explained, “So, listen, I drive from coast to coast, and this is flat to me. I’m just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me.”
The globetrotting NBA legend banked on his personal experience to further claim, “So you mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It’s not. The world is flat.”
This was following Kyrie Irving’s comments on how we should question the facts presented to us by authorities. Clearly, Shaquille O’Neal took that advice to heart and ran with it. To be fair though, his track record of, let’s call it ‘alternative knowledge’, always spoke for itself.
Shaq’s ingenious hack for saving gas money
Something must’ve been in the water in 2017-18, because another one of Shaq’s incredible claims came shortly after his flat Earth statement. In 2018, the big man was on Inside the NBA when Kenny Smith shared a complaint about having to spend $80 every time he filled up his tank.
The ‘Big Aristotle’ had a simple solution that would help Smith save tens of dollars. Instead of letting the tank run out, Shaq recommended, “When it gets to half, then you put $20 you bring it back to full.”
‘The Jet’, dumbfounded, attempted to reason with the 7-footer. “But I’ would have to stop more often to bring it back to $80,” Kenny Smith replied. To that, O’Neal simply responded, “No you wouldn’t.”
It’s hard to tell what’s a gaffe and what’s real with Shaquille O’Neal. Though he admitted to joking about the flat Earth, Shaq also doubled down his questioning 5 years later. This time, he was puzzled by the Earth’s axes and whether the planet is actually rotating.
“I’ve been living on a house on a lake for 30 years, not once did the lake rotate to the left or right,” the 2000 NBA MVP sincerely stated to People magazine. Who knows? Maybe gravity does work differently when you’re a 7-foot, 300-pound man. Thankfully, Shaq has actually shed some light on his perspective behind the fact-checking antics.
“I like listening to theories. It’s not about figuring them out, or he’s wrong or he’s right — it’s just a theory,” O’Neal explained.
