Rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar have stolen the headlines by engaging in the biggest public feud in entertainment over the last few weeks, but they have a new challenger in the sports media space.
Shaquille O'Neal and Shannon Sharpe, two of sports media's biggest names — and two legends in their respective sports — are suddenly also beefing.
It all started because O'Neal believed that Nikola Jokić should not have won the NBA's MVP award this season. Shaq and his team at TNT's "Inside the NBA" made the announcement on Wednesday, May 8, and he told Jokić straight to his face that he believed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander should have won MVP.
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"I want you to hear from me first — I thought that SGA should have been MVP. That's no disrespect to you," O'Neal said.
The NBA legend, who won the MVP award in 2000, did refer to Jokić as "the best player in the NBA" prior to making his statement. He also called Jokić the "Vice President of the Big Man Alliance," under which O'Neal has proclaimed himself the president.
While the Denver Nuggets big man seemed respectful of O'Neal's opinion, Sharpe went on his podcast "Nightcap" to lambast O'Neal's statements by claiming that he might be jealous of the success of big men like Jokić.
"Shaq seeing these guys winning these MVP's is a little envious," Sharpe said. "He sees a guy like Nikola Jokić that's not as dominant as him and he gets three in four years and people are talking about him."
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Sharpe also said that O'Neal is not included in the discussion for the greatest player of all-time in part because he wasn't serious enough when he was in the league.
To Sharpe's credit, O'Neal himself recently made the same statements about his own frustration about not being in the GOAT conversation.
"I am jealous that I'm not in [the GOAT] conversation," O'Neal said during a conversation with J.J. Redick from earlier this month.
But O'Neal still took offense to Sharpe's jabs because he didn't believe he was saying any disrespect to "The Joker." This led to four separate posts on Instagram by O'Neal that centered around how O'Neal believes he achieved more in his sport that Sharpe did in the NFL.
"You took be sticking up for @shai as jealousy??" O'Neal wrote in the first posted published around midnight on Friday. "shows how smart you are and how you say anything to get clicks. so here’s some click bait for you. if you ain’t ranked in the top ten in your profession , then you can’t speak on Me."
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O'Neal even took a page from the Drake-Kendrick beef and dropped a diss track on Sharpe just before noon Eastern Time on Friday.
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Sharpe responded to O'Neal's original post by addressing that he never tried to compare his own career to O'Neal.
"I never professed that I was as great as Shaq," Sharpe said. "But what I will say that I got where I got because I worked my ass off. Now Shaq has been the one to say that he didn't work as hard, he didn't train as hard, he didn't eat as well as he should have."
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Sharpe continued to add that he's heard Shaq constantly complain about he believes he deserved the 2006 MVP over Steve Nash, while Sharpe often gives credit to other NFL tight ends who he believes are better than him.
"You know why I got no problem with giving people credit? Because I got everything out of my God-given abilities," Sharpe said.
Sharpe also added by posting on X (formerly Twitter) that he doesn't believe there is a beef between the two.
NO BACK TRACK🚶🏾♂️NO BEEF 🥩 JUST CONTEXT 📄 https://t.co/CAxXM6sJ0T
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) May 10, 2024
Whether it's a beef or not, the back and forth between the two has already had several layers over the last day and it could escalate even further as O'Neal has shown no signs of stopping. This is made even more interesting by the fact that the two are in separate networks — with Sharpe on ESPN and O'Neal on TNT.
As O'Neal continues to throw more jabs on social media, it will be interesting to see whether Sharpe responds again through his podcast or if he uses the Monday appearance on "First Take" to air out his thoughts.
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