NEW YORK–Former NBA legend and current Turner Sports analyst Shaquille O’Neal has some advice for the Cleveland Cavaliers and how they can get back into the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
“Play better,” he told For The Win on Monday night before appearing at an American Express event with his former Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
That’s it? No changes to the lineup? Nothing for LeBron James?
“No,” he said. “Play better and compete. It’s all about competing.”
O’Neal had a better response when it came to a question about what James’s legacy might be if he doesn’t win a ring for Cleveland:
“For us, our legacy is if we don’t win championships. How many did I win? Four. LeBron won two, that’s good. But I think the talk now is if Steph [Curry] wins, okay, Steph has two, LeBron has two, whose league is it now?
If LeBron wins his third one and Steph is down at one, LeBron can hold the title as the best player in the league for at least two or three more years. Now if Steph ties him and Steph and them are playing incredible and he’s younger and cuter, everyone’s going to start to go over to Steph’s side. And then they’ll say, ‘LeBron, you’ve been there six times, you’ve only won twice.’ That’s what people measure you by, how many championships you have.”
O’Neal covered some other topics in an interview with For The Win:
What’s your feeling about the league pushing to make changes to penalize the so-called Hack-a-Shaq strategy?
I’m [ticked] about it. Cause we were the first to say, “Why do you allow this?” And their response to me was, “Shaq, you’re guy complaining about 27 teams.” And that was their so-called strategy to slow me down, which never really worked. Now that the game is faster, they don’t want it to be slow. I’m kind of upset about it, because as a player, you have to learn how to persevere. Phil used to always say, “I’m not calling a timeout for you. Want to win a championship? Hit it.” Period.
Do you want to see those intentional fouls to players with low free-throw percentages out of the game?
Doesn’t matter what I want to see. They’re probably going to outlaw it. You’ve got teams going the other way, it’s slowing the game down. When I played, it was, “Oh, we can’t stop him! If you don’t allow us to foul him, we don’t have a shot. They’re going to win a championship every year.”
What’s up with Draymond Green’s kicks? Are they intentional?
Once you do your move, it’s hard to go, “My feet are by his [groin], stop.” Him trying to create contact was intentional. Him kicking in the [groin]? I don’t think he’s that kind of player. Players have been doing that for years. James Harden is the biggest guy that does it. It’s called flailing.
Who was great at selling that back in your playing days?
Karl Malone, oh my God, he was the best. He did it all the time.
You spoke on the air about Muhammad Ali on Sunday. Should athletes be as active as he was beyond boxing?
I think you should do what you feel. A lot of time when people do things … like for me, I can tell when people are just doing stuff for opportunity. A lot of guys have never done stuff in their own community. As soon as they get the photo op, it’s, “I’m passing out boxes.” I can tell when it’s done from the heart.
Did you get a lot of your media persona from him?
I called it smacketing when I was growing up.
Smacketing?
Smacketing. Smack marketing. He used to say, “Y’all know me, it’s Muhammad Ali, this bum over here’s going down in three.” So now people will be like, “Yeah whatever,” but then they watch the fight. [Floyd] Mayweather does it, I did it, [Dennis] Rodman did it.
When I met Muhammad Ali, I realized I had to be nice. When I met him, he’s the most recognized athletes in the world and he was just so nice. I learned a lot from him. As I said, when my father couldn’t get through to me, he said, “Just watch Muhammad Ali.”
Here’s a visual question: Any thoughts on Charles Barkley’s batting practice swings?
In the words of Charles Barkley, that’s terrible!