Shaquille O'Neal on which NBA team he would play for now: “At some point, the student must kill the teacher”
Shaquille O'Neal recently appeared on the “Hoop Genius” podcast and shared some of his ideas about the NBA. The question that was proposed to O’Neal was what team he would play for in the present day.
"Whoever drafted me, I won't play along nobody because I grew up watching karate movies and at some point the student must kill the teacher and I want to kill them all." - Shaquille O'Neal
O’Neal knows about this dynamic firsthand. When he left Orlando, it wasn’t because he was trying to team up with someone but because the organization didn’t want to pay him as they should have. As for the “student must kill their teacher”, that is the reason his time in Los Angeles ended.
Shaq was the best and the most dominant player. Eventually, the young Kobe Bryant wanted to take over. In the summer of 2004, Bryant forced the organization’s hand and they had to get rid of Shaq. As the student in this case Kobe rose up, it became time for the teacher O’Neal to go.
Shaq clapped back at Kobe for saying he would've had 12 rings if Shaq had his work ethic.
He went OFF. His full response: cmplx.co/qv4qXdn https://t.co/utO0FZpkf3
Shaq also talked about staying with the team and trying to be the best. Trying to beat all of the top teams in the league. When asked if today’s players had that type of mentality, O'Neal responded with a negative.
"No, I think it's so much pressure because of social media and all that, they find easier ways to win. Like if you're inside the system and you get traded to a place or you get traded into a place, that's how it was originally done. - Shaquille O'Neal
What O'Neal is referring to is that players in the 1980s and 90s were locked into their teams. There were no superstar team-ups to speak of from that time period. Teams worked doubly hard to overcome opponents that were in their way.
"But, you know, all these free agents teaming up with each other, guys like Isaiah and Dominique, myself, we don't really respect that." - O'Neal
What Would Shaquille O'Neal Do In Today's Game
If Shaquille O'Neal played in today’s game, he would be just as dominant as he was during the 1990s and early 2000s. O’Neal was an athletic big who could dominate the paint and was a good rim protector on defense. He wasn’t a long-distance shooter, but that actually wouldn’t hurt him.
With a lot of teams in the league trying to shoot three and having their big men shoot from the outside, the back-to-basket center has become a lost art. Due to it being a lost art there aren’t probably many teams set up to defend this type of person. There hasn’t been anyone with Shaq’s size and strength to patrol the middle as he did.