One of the weirder beefs we’ve seen between a media person and a professional athlete in the last few months is between Shaquille O’Neal and First Take personality Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. The long and the short of it is that Russo went onto TV and said that Shaq was the fifth-best center in NBA history, which made the big fella pretty upset.
Anyway, fast forward to Thursday and Russo decided to prod Shaq again. The Denver Nuggets came up during the morning’s episode of First Take, and while discussing the team, Russo dropped a scorcher: In his eyes, Nikola Jokic is already a better all-time player than Shaq, Moses Malone, and Hakeem Olajuwon.
.@MadDogUnleashed believes Jokic is better than Shaq
“Jokic might be … the greatest center in the history of the NBA … at the end of his career. He’s better than Shaq, I’ll tell you that right now.” pic.twitter.com/gwf5lA9Z5d
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 14, 2024
“Jokic might be, might be, at the end of the day, the greatest center in the history of the NBA,” Russo said. “And that’s saying a lot, he might be at the end of his career. He’s that good. He’s better than Shaq, I’ll tell you that right now. Better than Shaq. Oh, he is. And not just Shaq! He’s better than Malone, Olajuwon, he does everything. He passes, he dribbles, he doesn’t have to dominate. He is great, Jokic is great.”
Both Domonique Foxworth and Brian Windhorst were blown away by this take, while Foxworth did what he could to get the conversation back on track after this aside. Anyway, Shaq has made clear on numerous occasions that he really loves Jokic, so even beyond how he’d respond to Russo, I sure would love to hear his thoughts on this one.