Shaquille O’Neal is once again taking aim at modern NBA players for their softness, though he has his reasons this time.
O’Neal is promoting his new “Dunkman” league, which is simply for competitive dunking. Dunking for show is not as popular in the NBA as it used to be, as evidenced by the difficulty of getting big names to participate in the annual dunk contest.
To Shaq, that is just evidence that they’re scared.
“What’s the word … soft?” O’Neal said, via Jason Jones of The Athletic. “You can tell them I said it. They’re soft, and they’re scared.”
The biggest star to do the dunk contest recently is Jaylen Brown, who suggested that other stars shy away from the event because they don’t want to be turned into a meme. That is basically what O’Neal said, through Brown was a bit more diplomatic about it.
On the other hand, some players just do not care about winning the dunk contest. It is not as prestigious as it used to be, and at this point it’s challenging to do anything that has not been done before. Maybe Shaq would call that soft, but some would argue it is just sensible.