by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

February 9, 2023

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal Settle Long-Time Beef

With so many momentous things taking place in the NBA over the past week, one of the most significant came on the night when LeBron James broke another Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar‘s all-time scoring record.

Legend has it that Abdul-Jabbar, considered among the game’s greatest players, didn’t have a relationship with another true legendary center, Shaquille O’Neal.

According to Sports Manor, Abdul-Jabbar did not like the comparison being made between him and Shaq when O’Neal first came into the league in 1992. Due to O’Neal not winning an NBA title by the time he joined the Lakers in 1996, the older retired player did not have much to say to him, although he had conversations with O’Neal’s teammates when he was on the Lakers team.

O’Neal said Abdul-Jabbar’s words about the young center not winning championships fueled him as he went on to win four NBA titles, three with the Lakers and one with the Miami Heat. Abdul-Jabbar won six in his storied career.

At the end of Tuesday night’s broadcast of the record-breaking game by James, the two retired Lakers players had a brief reconciliation on TNT, where O’Neal is part of the vaunted Inside the NBA crew.

Before the segment ended, Abdul-Jabbar said, “Hey, and I wanna tell Shaq I asked for you specifically this evening, because you felt like I was shaming you, or ignoring you. That would never be the case—and you showed them what you were all about the way you crushed all those centers in the league for a couple of years there. So, I’m on your side Shaq. Don’t ever let anybody tell you anything different.”

O’Neal responded: “Listen, you not speaking to me was the best thing to happen to my career. Because all I wanted to do was impress you. So I will talk to you soon, and I love you very much. I will never ever have beef with the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You ain’t got to worry about that.”

Abdul-Jabbar said: “That’s back at you. I love you, too, and I want you guys to keep impressing the whole world with our game. It’s a wonderful game.”


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