Shaquille O’Neal didn’t let things slide as he has hit back at Ben Simmons and his fans for labeling him a “hater” for exposing his DMs and criticizing him on a recent podcast.
Here is what Shaq had to say about him being labeled a “hater” by Ben Simmons’ fans;
Retired Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal offered a blunt rebuttal to both Ben Simmons and his critics who charge that O’Neal is a “hater” for his past criticism of Simmons.
O’Neal offered his comments on “The Big Podcast with Shaq” and explained to co-hosts Spice Adams and Nischelle Turner that criticism of Simmons comes with the territory.
“Listen, if you’re greater, you can’t be a hater,” O’Neal said. “Let’s get that straight right now. If you’re greater, you can’t be no hater. First of all, like I said, I’m just talking about what I see as a player, and I’m talking about what you gotta do to get to that next level. If you don’t like what I say, that ain’t my problem. First of all, it’s never a personal attack on you. I just say what I saw. I saw in his eyes, he was scared and guess what? Everybody goes through struggles. We all do. Everybody goes through struggles. We all do. But this is the game we play. This is the life we live. You’re going to take criticism. They pay us a lot of money, somehow you have to deal with it.”
“When I was dealing with everything going on, I actually messaged him, and he put it out, and I was like, alright,” Simmons said. “I DM’d him. I was like, ‘Why are you saying this if you don’t even know the story?’ ‘Cause he always wants to say, ‘Yo, we’re LSU brothers. You’re my brother.’ All this, that, if you’re my LSU brother, you would have reached out by now, and it’s been months since I been dealing with this. You ain’t reached out once and say, ‘Hey, you okay? What’s going on?’”
During the latter stages of Simmons’ time with the Philadelphia 76ers, he was the subject of harsh criticism for his play. That included his last game with the 76ers, when his decision to pass up an easy dunk was followed later by the Sixers’ elimination from the 2021 postsea
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