Shaquille O’Neal isn’t shy about tossing out a hot take, and his latest comments on New York’s championship run landed right in the middle of the debate.
On an episode of The Big Podcast with Adam Lefkoe and Iman Shumpert, O’Neal argued that the Knicks caught a break on their way to the title and pointed to a few specific moments in the run.
“I have four championships. Two of them were luck… Don’t you think the next championship was a little lucky this year?” O’Neal asked Shumpert.
He then zeroed in on OG Anunoby’s tip-in and the late-game sequence that followed. “If you don’t get that tip, it’s over,” said O’Neal while recalling OG Anunoby’s famous tip-in.
“Let me finish. If you don’t get that tip, you don’t win that game.
If dumba- Fox don’t try to f-king score with eight seconds left and OG don’t get the block, that’s two incidents right there.”
O’Neal also brought up the 29-point comeback. “If they don’t let the 29-point lead go. I’m just saying it was a little bit of luck in there,” O’Neal added.
Shumpert wasn’t buying it. The former Knicks player pushed back, saying, “Jalen Brunson was hurt,” before arguing that New York would have won in six games if it hadn’t completed that comeback.
“So they were lucky that they were born before these n--s? That’s crazy,” he added to question O’Neal’s statement.
O’Neal, though, doubled down on the idea that some of his own championships came with a slice of fortune attached. He said his first title with the Lakers in 2000 and his final one with the Heat in 2004 both had luck involved.
“If we didn’t win that Game 7, they would have probably traded me like they did after I won that final championship,” said O’Neal as he recalled his experience with the Lakers against the Trail Blazers in the 2000 Western Conference Finals.
“Because remember, those MFers came back, we were up 3-1, and they were suddenly blowing us out. If we didn’t win that Game 7, there would be no Shaq and Kobe,” O’Neal concluded.
That makes his view of New York’s run a little more complicated, because O’Neal has also sounded impressed by Jalen Brunson. On the Old Man and the Three podcast, he compared Brunson’s look and presence to Kobe Bryant and said a conversation with the Knicks guard made him believe New York was going to win it all.
“Kenny and I cornered (Brunson). We had a show right before the playoffs, and I like to mess with guys.
I said, ‘Hey man, you going to win a championship this year?’ He had that look in his eye like when I used to ask Kobe,” said O’Neal about his interaction with Brunson.
“Like he really had that look where I was like ‘Hey, they were going to do it.’ And then when they played Atlanta and lost those games, I got nervous. But the way they stepped up, came back, and were beating teams, they actually did it the right way.”
Brunson’s postseason line backed up that praise. In 19 playoff games, he averaged 28.4 points, 6.1 assists, and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 46.5% from the field and 36.3% from three-point range. He did it with an injured hand through the playoffs, too.
Brunson has long been open about his admiration for Kobe Bryant, so O’Neal’s comparison isn’t exactly out of left field. Still, hearing O’Neal say the Knicks got lucky while also crediting Brunson with Kobe-like traits gives the whole conversation an odd edge.
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