- [Narrator] Shaquille O'Neal takes a lot of pride
in his status among the greatest centers
in basketball history.
Shaq has always spoken about the NBA's center position
like it's a fraternity.
He feels his inarguable greatness as a player
empowers him to speak out
as a sort of chancellor for that fraternity,
a big man emeritus entitled
to judge his seven-foot brothers.
If you play a dishonorable style
or speak out of turn or otherwise behave
in a way Shaq finds unbecoming of a center, he will say so.
We know Shaq picked fights with contemporaries.
And we know Shaq has nitpicked the next generation of bigs.
But what about the centers who came before him?
Shaq's fraternal feelings include deep admiration
and fond words for the icons at his position,
with one notable exception, Bill Walton.
When it comes to this legendary NBA center, Shaq's got beef.
(contemplative music)
We are not talking about the distant past here.
In a 2020 podcast, Shaquille O'Neal used Bill Walton
as an example of someone
who shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame,
at least based on just his NBA career.
As recently as 2022, Shaq went totally out of his way
to insist Walton's accomplishments weren't enough
for inclusion on the NBA 75 list.
- Yeah, 'cause why, he only got 6,000 points in the NBA.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Narrator] While also indicating this wasn't a new
or purely objective thought.
- You know who I've always had a problem with, Bill Walton.
- I think a lot of people.
- Yeah, you say that all the time.
- [Narrator] Huh, okay, so let's go back.
The concept of an elite big man fraternity
has basically always been part of Shaq's story.
Shaq invited comparisons to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
with his high school jersey number.
His college coach at LSU invited some NBA greats,
including Walton, to come mentor him.
All of this felt appropriate
because observers anticipated, correctly,
that Shaq would become one of those greats.
Take this Reebok commercial from 1993,
O'Neal's rookie season.
Shaq knocks on the invisible door of a prestigious clubhouse
and meets Bill Russell, who offers
this sort of meta admission
of how premature this whole exercise is.
- You're early.
- [Narrator] Until Shaq insists he's different.
- But I'm ready.
- Then prove it.
- And thus Shaq gets an audience
with his esteemed seven-foot elders,
Wilt, Russell, Kareem and Bill Walton.
Now, to understand where our story is headed
and why Shaq keeps disparaging Walton's career on podcasts,
we will need to crudely compare achievements
between these greats.
When it comes to collegiate glory,
especially in the NCAA tournament,
Bill Walton's record at UCLA is right up there
with the best of these guys.
But in the NBA, it's a different story.
Here is a rundown of titles, MVPs, All-Star appearances
and points for Wilt, Russ and Kareem.
Here, when it was all said and done, is Shaq's resume,
which compares pretty favorably to those legends,
especially when you consider the eras in which they played.
And here's Bill Walton.
Now, like I said, this is a terribly crude exercise.
All of this needs context, especially Walton's unique story.
Bedeviled by bad luck and chronic foot issues,
Walton scarcely even came close to playing a full season
over his decade and change in the NBA.
When available, Walton was fantastic.
Finals MVP for the 1977 Champion Portland Trailblazers
and League MVP the following season.
But Walton missed several entire seasons of his prime
due to injury.
He broke up with the Blazers on unfriendly terms
and spent most of his early 30s as a utility bench player,
winning that second ring as a low minute glue guy
for the '86 Celtics and retiring soon thereafter.
Bill Walton accomplished great things,
but his NBA career doesn't measure up to his legendary peers
or to his own UCLA glory,
simply because health limited his opportunities.
It is what it is.
And for a while, it wasn't really on Shaq's mind.
That's probably because he and Walton
had a regular amicable relationship in person
and complemented each other well at their respective jobs.
In the '90s and 2000s, while Shaq ascended
from star to superstar to champion and legend,
Walton was establishing his unique persona
as a member of the media.
Erudite and blustery, florid in both praise
and condemnation, a guy who loves great basketball
almost as much as he loves the Grateful Dead.
And Shaq was Bill's muse.
When O'Neal joined the L.A. Lakers in 1996,
Walton sounded absolutely over the moon,
describing the big guy as a combination of Magic and Wilt.
He foresaw the next great Laker,
the star who would lead them back to glory.
Bill couldn't find anything to criticize about Shaq in L.A.
"Are you kidding me? This is great."
As Shaq and Kobe Bryant carried the Lakers
to three consecutive titles, Walton's platform only grew.
Bill spent the spring of 2002 on a highly publicized
30-day, 30-game tour of the NBA playoff landscape,
then joined the broadcast booth for live coverage
of the finals that June,
while the Lakers were pursuing their three-peat.
Shaq was the inspiration
for one of Walton's most legendary calls,
really the perfect pairing of spectacle and narration.
- [Bill] Throw it down, throw it down, big man.
- [Narrator] Not that everyone agreed.
Shaq reciprocated the attention in less enthusiastic ways.
During the 2002 finals, he tried to distance himself
from Walton on at least two occasions.
One came up in the context of a big toe injury
that nagged O'Neal during the '01-'02 season
and throughout those finals.
Shaq played through the foot pain,
joking that he would keep doing so
until, oh, rude.
More on that soon.
Second thing, when asked about that time
Walton came to LSU to give him some lessons,
Shaq was dismissive.
They only worked together one day.
Bill didn't teach him much.
And while O'Neal borrowed plenty of moves
from other great big men,
Walton, as an older fella, didn't have much to offer.
His moves were analog. Also rude.
That summer Shaq's toe problem lingered long enough
that he felt compelled to take an option
he'd been afraid of, foot surgery.
Why was he scared?
Again, it was a matter of ending up like Bill Walton.
No offense.
None taken, necessarily,
but Walton supposedly said something to someone
about how O'Neal losing weight
might relieve pressure on his toe.
Walton was far from the first person to suggest this.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson said the same on record.
But once Walton's comments reached Shaq,
he focused his animus toward Bill.
Before a game in Portland, early in the '02-'03 season,
O'Neal spotted Walton interviewing Kobe Bryant
in the locker room and addressed him.
"I'm no peon. Watch your mouth."
Walton didn't respond, but later suggested to reporters
that his point got lost in translation.
He just thought a lighter Shaq
might be a healthier, better Shaq.
Shaquille was not having it.
He told reporters to pass along the stats.
He was 342 pounds, 17% body fat.
And then came the big turn,
a tone-setter for the decades to follow.
"He talks too much.
I've done more in the league than he's done."
Shaq told Bill, who is 20 years his senior,
to respect his elders.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that is beef.
On multiple occasions, this guy had been presented to Shaq
as a mentor and as an example of what he might become.
In just a couple media cycles, Shaq ripped those notions
and Walton's entire NBA resume to shreds.
Coincidentally, O'Neal had a pretty rough 2003 season.
He gave a media guy and former great like Walton
plenty to talk about.
Shaq's toe still wasn't all the way healthy,
and Walton weighed in.
Rifts between the Lakers percolated more and more,
with Shaq openly sneering at teammates.
And Walton weighed in.
Shaq said, and only kind of apologized
for some pretty racist stuff about Yao Ming.
Walton weighed in, forcefully.
Maybe less coincidentally, Shaq kept using Walton
as a sort of derogatory shorthand reference point
for his sore foot.
Things unraveled in L.A.
Shaq got fed up, got traded and moved along to Miami,
although not before spending one season
playing with Bill's son, Luke Walton,
and evidently talking a lot
about Luke's quote "crazy father."
Anyway, while Shaq starred for the Heat,
Bill Walton was out there singing his praises,
calling him the king of the sport
and marveling at how thoroughly
he dominated the competition.
But he was also out there identifying occasions
in which Shaq underperformed that level of greatness,
like when he saw Shaq getting outplayed
by Sagana Diop and Erick Dampier in the 2006 finals.
Miami turned around that series
to win Shaq his fourth title.
The Big Diesel, relatively healthy and glorious once more,
didn't have much to say about Bill Walton.
But as another champion fell apart, the beef returned.
In the 2008 season, O'Neal's performance slipped,
along with that of the Heat.
He missed games with sort of vague health issues
which sparked conflict between Shaq and coach Pat Riley,
who implied his star was exaggerating his injuries
to bail on a struggling team.
In February '08, Riley cut O'Neal loose,
trading him to Phoenix,
where Shaq suddenly sounded much more upbeat
about his prognosis.
On Sports Center, Walton called bullshit.
- Doing absolutely nothing, saying he couldn't play at all,
now he said he's gonna win the championship.
What's up with this?
- [Narrator] And in closing,
Walton delivered the most direct ad hominem vitriol
he had ever uttered about Shaquille O'Neal.
- Shaq's arrogance is an insult to people who think.
- [Narrator] Shaq was the bigger man.
He addressed Walton's criticism
with a simple, "No comment."
Just kidding, in extremely Shaq fashion,
the new Phoenix Sun cheekily repeated the idea
that Walton wasn't accomplished enough to talk about him.
- I think Mr. Walton has broken the big man
pecking order code, ordinance 2257,
which means his resume isn't quite good enough
to speak on what I've done.
- [Narrator] He reiterated the one fact he saw
as defining Walton's career
and invalidating his entire persona.
- Now here's a guy who only played one
or two seasons injury-free,
and now he's talking about me being injured.
So one thing I really hate is a hypocrite.
- [Narrator] He referenced the three other guys
in that Reebok commercial,
the centers he saw as authentic legends.
- [Shaq] I've spoken to Bill Russell.
I've had conversation with Wilt Chamberlain, rest in peace,
haven't spoken with Kareem.
- [Narrator] And so as to separate Walton
from that Mount Rushmore,
he compared him to a modern day benchwarmer.
- If Bill was playing right now,
you remember what happened to Greg Ostertag?
You remember that, right?
- [Narrator] This is vintage Shaq.
Playful words belying a genuinely harsh message.
Dude wasn't done, either.
Shaq compared himself to Bill Russell or Bill Gates.
He compared Bill Walton to the owner of Atari.
So yeah, Shaq really unloaded.
His words echoed those of 2002,
although this time the attack comprised
of proportionate response to Walton's.
Bill had initiated the dialogue
with something a lot more provocative,
a lot more personal than advice about Shaq's playing weight.
Not long after all this, Shaq did end up
serving kind of a Bill Walton role.
He played light minutes for contending teams,
including the very same franchise
with which Walton won his second ring.
Granted, Shaq assumed that role
when he was nearly 40 years old.
He didn't recede in his early 30s the way Walton had to.
So yes, Shaquille O'Neal was better than Bill Walton.
Thanks in some part to better health,
Shaq's career more closely resembles that
of his beloved Mount Rushmore of great centers.
I don't think Bill would disagree.
But he would surely disagree about what that means.
Shaq feels the achievement gap
makes Walton unqualified to talk about him.
But for a while, it was Walton's job to talk about Shaq.
And that included everything from praise to advice
to direct attacks.
Shaq did not want to hear it,
but Walton wouldn't stop talking, louder and louder.
Shaq's out of the league now,
but even as big man emeritus,
he's not one to let go of a grudge,
which explains this campaign to besmirch Walton's resume.
So even as these guys cross paths without incident,
there is beef simmering just below the surface.
(energetic music)
(electronic whooshing)
(contemplative music)