"You’re expected to win"- Shaquille O'Neal blasts Giannis Antetokounmpo for failure comments
NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal was not a fan of Milwaukee Bucks superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo’s failure comments following the Bucks’ first-round loss to Miami. Antetokounmpo made headlines when he said that Milwaukee's season was not a failure.
This comes despite the first-seeded Bucks losing in five games to the eighth-seeded Heat. O’Neal voiced his disagreement with Antetokounmpo’s comments immediately after his postgame press conference. However, the big man has since reiterated his stance on what constitutes failure.
On a recent episode of “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” O’Neal first said that all successful people embrace failure:
“The problem is when you hear the word failure, there’s so much negativity in the world, people go to the bottom,” O’Neal said. “But you need to realize that the greatest of us have failed. How many times did you fail Nischelle before you won your sixth Emmy?”
“Well, I’ve been in the business for 25 years, so a lot,” O’Neal's co-host Nischelle Turner responded.
“The great ones relish failure in this business of sports,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal then referenced teams trying to win a Super Bowl in the NFL:
“We play football, we’re trying to get to the Super Bowl,” O’Neal said. “Yeah, we (got) drafted, we’re on a team, we want to go through these 12 weeks, we want to get to the Super Bowl. And we want to win a Super Bowl.”
O’Neal later went on to talk about how he will never embrace the modern-day participation trophy mentality:
“You know, this participation, buddy environment that we live in, it’s changing the game,” O’Neal said. “I always tell people I’m 50 years old and I’m not rewiring my training for the new era, this new style that we’re living. I’m not doing it."
He continued:
“When you’re touted as the best, you’re expected to win, and if you don’t, it’s a failure. It’s not bad. I’m not a failure as a player, but I failed the city, I failed the team and I failed to reach my accomplishments. Period. Point blank."
He also said:
“So, he won two years ago, and we all know when you win, what do they expect you to do? Go back-to-back. Win again. … And then you lost to an eighth seed. You can’t lose to no eighth seed and say it’s not a failure. It’s a failure.”
Shaquille O'Neal's discussion about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s failure comments starts at the 9:22 mark below:
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Shaquille O’Neal says the majority of his career was a failure
Later on in his discussion about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s failure comments, Shaquille O’Neal turned the focus towards himself. O’Neal pointed out that failure is a matter of perspective. According to O’Neal, he failed during the 15 seasons that he didn’t win an NBA title over his 19-year career:
“Different people look at it differently. I failed 15 times, I did,” O’Neal said. “Because I was the Shaq, I was the man, I had all the commercials, I had all the money. ‘You was supposed to win, you missed a lot of free throws, you can’t shoot, you failed.’ So, when I won, what did they expect me to do? Win again."
He continued:
“Yeah they expect you to win, and the great ones, we take that on. We really do. So, we don’t read the captions and take the captions to heart. ‘Oh Shaq, you failed.’ I did fail. If I ain’t got the trophy at the end of the season, I failed.”
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