Shaquille O’Neal has had an interesting month. He presented Nikola Jokić with the MVP award and then told him to his face that he didn’t deserve it. When called out by Shannon Sharpe, the 4x Champ responded with a flurry of Instagram posts aimed at the former NFL star and a “diss-track” of sorts. Analyst Jason Whitlock wasn’t happy with Shaq’s antics, and he addressed it on his show.
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On a recent episode of Fearless with Jason Whitlock, the analyst questioned his and other American athletes’ combative mentality and lack of humility, saying,
“This is what happens with these American-born players who’ve adopted the wrong mentality and they mimic rappers. They think swagger is everything. They think bravado and bragging is everything. Shaq was a rapper during the prime of his career… He has the mentality of a rapper and what I’m constantly stressing on this show, Shaq and everybody else would benefit from a biblical worldview.”
Whitlock added that a “biblical worldview” would help O’Neal adopt humility as a trait and avoid getting into meaningless confrontations that he often does. He claimed Jokic’s humbleness has helped him continue to push himself to get better on the court, which has rubbed on his teammates, who’ve followed the MVP’s lead, elevated their game, and turned the Nuggets into a juggernaut.
O’Neal, unsurprisingly, responded with a sarcastic Instagram post, proving Whitlock’s point that he lacks humility.
O’Neal has never been humble and has often dubbed himself the ‘most dominant basketball player ever.’ However, the four-time NBA champion admitted that he didn’t take as much care of his body as he should’ve and ballooned up to over 400 pounds in his prime.
Even Kobe Bryant, who won three straight NBA titles with the center, claimed he was lazy and could’ve been in the GOAT conversation with 12 rings if he had a good work ethic. In turn, Shaq once mentioned Black Mamba in one of his songs as well, criticizing him for ruining the big man’s relationship with his ex-wife.
Shaquille O’Neal dissed Kobe Bryant and blamed him for his divorce
Shannon Sharpe wasn’t the first great athlete that Shaquille O’Neal dissed with a rap song. His first famous target was former teammate Kobe Bryant, whom he called out after the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Boston Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals and also claimed that the five-time NBA champion was responsible for his divorce from wife Shaunie,
“Check it. You know how I be, last week Kobe couldn’t do without me. Kobe, n****, tell me how my a** tastes… I’m a horse. Kobe ratted me out. That’s why I’m getting divorced. He said, ‘Shaq gave a b**** a mil.’ I don’t do that, ’cause my name Shaquille.”
The $1 million line was a reference to Bryant’s stunning admission to detectives during an interrogation about the sexual assault allegations levied against him in 2004. The former MVP claimed O’Neal had spent that amount to buy women’s silence and he should’ve done the same. O’Neal dismissed Bryant’s claims and called them “ridiculous.”
However, his wife Shaunie believed them and looked into it further, prompting the Hall of Famer to file for divorce in 2007. He withdrew the petition on her insistence, only for her to file for separation in 2009. The couple parted ways in 2011, seven years after Bryant’s claims about O’Neal paying women off came to light. It’s unclear whether the five-time NBA champion’s comment caused irreparable damage to their marriage, but it caused enough grief for O’Neal to diss his former teammate.
