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Shaq On The NBA’s Attempts At Restarting: ‘We Should Scrap The Season’

As the NBA works to figure out a plan to safely restart the 2019-20 season, one of the league’s most prominent former player made it known that they find the Association’s attempts to resume play misguided. In an interview with the New York Post, Shaquille O’Neal expressed his belief that the NBA ends this campaign altogether.

“We should scrap the season,” O’Neal told Zach Brazille. “Continue to care about the safety of the players and the people, let the government figure out how they’re going to get rid of this thing forever. I hate hearing this statement, oh it’s going to come back, it’s going to come back.”

Shaq’s comments came on the same day as NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s reportedly wide-ranging phone call with players about the COVID-19 pandemic, where Silver told players that if play were to resume, it could be in an isolated environment like Las Vegas or Orlando. Silver also made clear that games would occur without fans, something that could be the case until there is a vaccine for the virus.

That last point is something that Shaq, at the very least, believes would negatively impact his performance if he was still playing.

“I would absolutely play horrible with no fans,” O’Neal said. “Oh my God. I would be the worst center in NBA history, because I need to feed off the energy of the crowd, I need to get my adrenaline boosted. You know how many games I won just by going into opponents’ arenas and fans look at me crazy? Every time I missed a free throw they laughed. I would go, ‘oh you think it’s funny? Watch this.’ I would definitely need that.”

It’s a tricky line for the NBA to walk, because while everyone wants basketball to come back, it’s really hard to justify it if it cannot be done safely, and while canceling this season would be the league’s last resort, it is not hard to see how we get to that point sometime in the future. If Shaq has his way, canceling the season won’t be a last resort, but rather, the common sense solution.