Shaquille O’Neal is a man of specific tastes. The big man knows what he likes, from appearing in commercials, to DJing, to buying custom cars. Usually, that’s not a problem for anybody, but another thing Shaq really enjoys is picking on certain current NBA players. At the top of the list is Rudy Gobert.
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Shaq never passes up a chance to rag on the four-time Defensive Player of the Year. Maybe it’s the fact that Gobert is a native Frenchman and Shaq, having attended college at LSU, prefers Creole. Maybe it’s the fact that although Gobert plays the same position that he once did, he does it in a very different way.
Whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that Shaq loves to needle Gobert, but his most recent case of bullying was a bit much, even for him. Let’s set the stage — Gobert’s teammate Donte DiVincenzo was mic’d up during Sunday’s win over the Nuggets.
After he left a free throw short, he remarked on the bench, with Gobert sitting right there, “I shoot free throws like Shaq,” an obvious joke to make given how awful of a free throw shooter Shaq was. When the clip was played back on Inside the NBA later, Shaq wasn’t amused, even if his cohosts were.
“I wish I was playing, I would flagrant his a** the next game, I promise I would,” Shaq said. “That’s the difference with these softies in the game now. I’m gonna see you, DiVincenzo, put some spaghetti in your face.”
Weird bit of anti-Italian imagery aside, it’s hilarious that Shaq was so bent out of shape over the comment, especially since he’s poked fun at himself for his free throws woes over the years. After saying this, though, it’s like his brain snapped back and reminded him to stick to what he likes: destroying Rudy Gobert.
“Actually, you know, I like DiVincenzo, I’m gonna take it out on soft-a** Rudy Gobert,” he said. Poor Gobert didn’t say a word, and didn’t even laugh at or acknowledge what DiVincenzo said, but Shaq didn’t care. He saw his target, and he went for it.
On the No Fouls Given podcast, Paul Pierce, Danny Green and Wosny Lambre laughed it up over Shaq’s comments. First they cracked up over the “spaghetti in your face” line, then they lost it over Gobert catching a stray.
Pierce likened it to someone at a party who laughs at someone else’s joke, only to have the spotlight turned on them when the joke target says, “Whatchou laughing at?”
Gobert wasn’t even laughing, which makes this even worse. Pierce said that after enduring so much abuse from Shaq over the years, the four-time All-NBAer needs to start standing up for himself.
“It’s like the bully when he takes your lunch money and you continuously let him, you have to fight back,” he said. He even suggested Gobert use his status as a three-time Defensive Player of the Year to his advantage. “You got some ammo,” he said. “Like come on, he got something, use it. I don’t care what it is. He gotta come up with something.”
It just doesn’t seem to be in Gobert’s nature to fire back at Shaq, and that’s only emboldened him to pile on more. They say to stop a bully you have to punch him in the face, but even though Shaq is 53 years old, that’s not a fight that Gobert is likely to win. Maybe ignoring it is his best bet after all.
