With the 2022-23 NBA season coming to a close, Shaquille O’Neal has taken no time at all to move his focus on to other things. The Lakers legend is currently out on a tour of the country as his deejay persona, ‘DJ Diesel’. He will also be holding his own music festival in September of 2023. All in all, Shaq has been a busy man… just not busy enough to stop making outlandish claims, like calling himself the ‘Black Steph Curry’. And because of such antics, he was recently called out by the Warriors superstar’s mother, Sonya Curry, in rather cheeky fashion.
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O’Neal calling himself the ‘Black Stephen Curry’ is nothing new. He has often publicly stated that the Dubs guard is his favorite player to watch in the NBA. And after getting inspired by him, Shaq has even fixed his faulty jump shot.
Still, it appears that he has given himself that title one too many times for Sonya’s liking.
Sonya Curry reacts to Shaquille O’Neal calling himself the ‘Black Steph Curry’
Shaquille O’Neal often holds concerts with the name, DJ Diesel. And in these concerts, fans often throw a little basketball at him, motioning the big man to take a shot at a mini-hoop held up by the crowd.
To Shaq’s credit, he is known to make these shots more often than not despite his struggles from the free-throw line throughout his NBA career. And that didn’t change in a recent concert clip that the NBA great proudly shared on his Instagram. Take a look at the Instagram post by DJ Diesel in question and the tweet by @NBACelebsUpdate below.
“I told y’all I’m black Steph Curry,” Shaq captioned his long range jumper.
Sonya Curry instantly reacted to this, having a bit of a problem with Shaq’s statement. Shockingly, her issue wasn’t with the part where O’Neal called himself Steph Curry despite the claim being quite outlandish. In fact, Sonya called out Shaq because he had called himself a Black version of her son, when her son was himself Black. Shaq’s son Myles O’Neal also backed her up on this. Take a look at the tweet by @Melobabbydaddy below to see both of their comments.
Sonya: Hold up… my son is Black… how about “Dark skinned *heart emoji* Steph !!!” *Laughing emoji*
Myles: Steph Curry is black *Laughing emoji*
Myles and Sonya do have a point. After all, Stephen Curry is of African-American descent. Therefore, “Dark-skinned Steph Curry” does sound more appropriate. So perhaps Shaq needs to consider changing his favorite nickname just a little bit.
Stephen Curry is Shaq’s favorite basketball player
As mentioned prior, O’Neal has often announced his love for Stephen Curry in public. Despite being the polar opposite of the 6ft 3” Warriors star, Shaq just can’t seem to get enough of him. And on one occasion, he decided to explain why. You can read all the details here.
Shaq has called himself the Black Steph Curry on multiple occasions before. Kenny Smith tried to correct him when Shaq made the same claim during a TNT broadcast. However, it seems to be a running joke that Shaq employs to make people laugh.
