Dan Patrick: “Is there a player in the NBA right now that if you got into the ring with you’d go ‘alright, you got my attention.'”
Shaquille O’Neal: “No.”
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Dan Patrick: “Do you hold a grudge against anybody with how they played you?”
Shaquille O’Neal: “No, never. It made me better. It let me know that I had to step up. It let me know that I wasn’t that great. When I talk flack a lot of people are like ‘YOU’RE TOO HARD ON THE YOUNGSTERS!’ Well, I’m just doing what was done to me... I can remember when I was averaging 30-35 in LA, but we’d always get swept, the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said ‘hey, you guys haven’t won the championship yet.’ Did I whine? Did I cry? Did I complain on social media? Nope, I didn’t say anything because Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had ‘G-14 classification’ to say that. What am I going to do, have a dispute with the greatest NBA player ever? When he said that and gave me constructive criticism I took it, and I listened, and I brought my game to another level. These guys right now are ‘pudding pops’. You say something about them and it's ‘HEY, SHAQ IS HATING!'... I remember my second year when they named me to the NBA's 'Top 50', people were going crazy: 'HE'S ONLY BEEN IN TWO YEARS, HOW IS HE ONE OF THE TOP 50 PLAYERS??' But I knew I was like 'Okay, all you old-timers who don't think I'm one of the 50 greatest players, WATCH THIS.'" (Full Segment Above)
Listen to Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal join The Dan Patrick Show and discuss the challenges of critiquing modern NBA players as an analyst in the year 2021, as Shaq says this current generation of players are ‘pudding pops’ when it comes to taking constructive criticism.
Check out the segment above as Shaq says the players today are misinterpreting wisdom and legitimate critiquing for ‘hating’, adding that they’ll rush to their social media pages right after any negative talk about them instead of realizing they need to improve their games.
FULL interview below:
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