Oh Shaq, always giving us something to talk about. While Shaq says he has no ill will towards Dwight Howard, he repeatedly criticizes him in public. Apparently he does this to bring out the best in Howard and took a small jab at him last night before the Lakers retired his jersey.
Check out what he had to say…
Via Dave McMenamin at ESPN:
On the night that Shaquille O’Neal’s No. 34 jersey was retired, the “Big Aristotle” was asked to predict if another Los Angeles Lakers championship banner would be raised to the rafters before Kobe Bryant retires.
“I hope they will but I’m a big-man guy,” O’Neal said. “The other guy needs to step into his own.”
The “other guy,” of course, is Dwight Howard, who O’Neal has tweaked in the press time and time again.
It was no different on Tuesday as O’Neal was immortalized along with the Lakers legendary line of centers and used the occasion to fire up Howard to follow the same path.
“I would like to see him average 28 (points) and 10 (rebounds),” O’Neal said. “That’s the number that was thrown in my face, 28 and 10, so that’s the number I’m always going to throw in his face.”
Howard, in his ninth season, has averaged 18.2 points and 13.0 rebounds in his career. He’s averaging 16.6 points and 12.7 rebounds this season while he recovers from offseason back surgery and a torn labrum in his right shoulder.
“I’m not criticizing the guy; I’m just issuing a challenge,” O’Neal said. “I see a kid with a lot of talent. When I see him averaging 16 or 18 (points), that’s not enough for me.”
What was enough time for O’Neal was the eight seasons he spent with the Lakers. Even though O’Neal said “of course” he could have won more than the three championships and four Finals appearances he paired with Bryant to achieve, he said it was time to go in 2004.
“It wasn’t all about just because me and (Bryant),” O’Neal said of the Lakers’ dismantling of their championship core when he was traded to the Miami Heat. “It was just the business of basketball. Luckily, for me the way I was raised, I’m used to doing something different every four years. So, I looked at it like I spent two military tenures here. I was in L.A. eight years. It was just time for me to do something else. It was time for Kobe to come into his own. It was time for me to go somewhere else.”
