NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal has high expectations from Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard
Recently retired basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal believes Dwight Howard really should win multiple NBA World Championships before his career is over. The former Los Angeles Lakers centre, nicknamed Superman, said if Dwight wants
to call himself Superman than he has a big legacy to live up to.
Shaquille O’Neal was the most dominant centre in the NBA for around a decade. The monster of a man was simply unstoppable when at his peak during the Lakers years and continued to be a force when with the Miami Heat.
Known by many nicknames, including The Diesel and Shaq-fu, Shaq matched up to his big personality off the court with great success on it. He won the NBA world Championship 4 times and also won a host of individual accolades, such
as the MVP award.
In the last few years, Dwight Howard has emerged as heir to Shaquille’s throne of the most dominant NBA centre. Howard, today, is undoubtedly the best centre walking the planet and has also inherited O’Neal’s nick name, Superman.
That didn’t go down too well with Shaq, who said during an interview that just taking up the name didn’t mean much. If Howard wanted his nick name, he should also put in the performances justifying the name. Dwight won the NBA
Slam Dunk contest some time ago with a cape but that wasn’t enough for O’Neal.
The big man wants to see Dwight win some silverware.
“If you want to call yourself me (Superman), then you’ve got big shoes to fill.” Shaq told Nola.com.
O’Neal, whose mother is friends with Howard’s mother, said Howard needed to show some real dominance on the court. He was of the view that Howard, who has started his career the same way Shaq did, i.e. with the Orlando Magic, now
needs to win some NBA titles to show his worth.
“I’ve never seen him dog another centre out. I tried to dog centres out. I went at David Robinson. If Dwight doesn’t win two or three championships, I’m going to be disappointed.”
Shaq didn’t stop there. He called into question the quality of opposition Dwight has to face in today’s NBA. When Shaquille was plying his trade early in his career, he had a lot tougher opponents to deal with,
“He doesn’t have nobody. When I came in the league, I had to go through Alonzo Mourning, Arvydas Sabonis, Kevin Duckworth, Rik Smits. Now I can’t name any other centres besides Kendrick Perkins and Andrew Bynum. Who else is there?
That’s it.”
Time will tell if Howard can live up to the high demands made of him. It is believed he would leave the Magic if he can’t find success with the franchise soon.
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