Olympic gold medallist Shaquille O’Neal has given a brutal take on Team USA’s campaign at the Paris Olympics.
The all-time big man played for Team USA in the 1994 FIBA World Championship and in the 1996 Olympics, where he took home gold medals on both occasions.
On his podcast recently, he was aksed what he thought about Jayson Tatum being benched and he pivoted to how unimpressed he was by Team USA at the games overall.
Despite the team being made up of some of the best NBA players in history – LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant – the team almost went down to South Sudan in an exhibition game, who had never played in the Olympics before.
“I’m not even paying attention to the Olympics,” said O’Neal on The Big Podcast with Shaq.“… I have a dominant personality. I don’t care how you are, whatever, my cousin Kenny just had this argument upstairs. My cousin said, ‘The world is getting close’ but I don’t think it is. The fact that (USA Basketball won) 97-95, you only beat South Sudan by one. Come on, bro. That’s never supposed to happen.”
USA redeemed themselves in the official games, going undefeated through the poll games and finals, culminating with an epic in against France in the Final.
Shaq’s disdain from the Olympics could have come from when he competed in the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
He recently admitted on a seperate episode his podcast that he threw his gold medal out of the window, because of the lack of playing time he got in the Final.
“The Olympic Games, ’96, I played throughout, helped them come back, win games,” the Hall of Famer said. “And in the gold medal game, [coach] Lenny Wilkens says, ‘Hey, this is probably David Robinson’s last game, so he’s gonna get more minutes.’ I said, ‘Cool.’”
“He didn’t play me at all until, like, the last two minutes. I was so pissed off, after the ceremony, I drove home in my uniform, and I threw the goddamn medal out the window on 1-75.”
“On the road, somewhere on the highway, there is an Olympic gold medal,” The Big Podcast cohost Adam Lefkoe joked.
Shaq affirmed that he doesn’t regret chucking out his gold medal and hasn’t ever heard of it being found.
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