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Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest NBA players ever. Shaq played in the NBA for 19 years and was a menace to the other teams. He was dominant and always had a positive impact on his team. Shaq absolutely dominated the low block. There were very few players who could beat him in the paint on either side of the court. He was an unstoppable force during his prime.

Terrell Owens holding Dude Wipes XL

There were so many good things about Shaq’s career. In fact, this is generally what the majority of people talk about while talking about him. However, Buccaneers legend Warren Sapp had some harsh words about Shaq’s legacy as a basketball player.

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Warren Sapp takes a jab at Shaquille O’Neal’s greatness

The conversation was about Odell Beckham Jr, and how Warren Sapp had claimed that Odell was not great. He put his points again and shared how it was just seeing potential, not being met.

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Warren also mentioned that in his opinion, if a player plays for more than two teams, he is not that great. And this is where he took Shaq’s name as an example.

WATCH THIS STORY: 5 times Shaq almost killed an opponent on court.

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Sapp said, “I said [about] Shaq, at some point dawg you got to put the j**nt out because right now you just bad. You just mid-grade w**d. ‘Oh! Here you try.’ They passing you around the league right now. You mid-grade dawg. You ain’t no crib lobo. At that mid-grade right now Shaq.” He referred to the fact that Shaq played for 6 different teams in his career.

The biggest weaknesses in the playing style of Shaquille O’Neal

Not everyone would agree that playing for different teams wouldn’t makes someone a great player. But that is Warren’s opinion, and he can’t be blamed for having one. Now that Warren so blatantly mentioned that Shaq wasn’t great, a few reasons could be listed as to why he might feel this way.

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Although Warren strictly judged him on the number of teams he played for, Shaq did have a few weaknesses. His speed was one of them. Shaq was never the quickest on his feet. He lacked finesse, which was because of his large physique. This, in hindsight, covered up for his lack of quickness.

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Another big weakness of his game was his shooting. While he was second to none around the paint, he lacked the skills of shooting. He only made one three-pointer in 22 attempts in his 19 years career. The Big Diesel was also poor from free throws. He himself jokes about it. Having said that, all this really never hindered him from being one of the greatest ever.

Also read: How Bad Free Throws by Shaquille O’Neal Led to a Crazy Change in the NBA Rules

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There aren’t many players who fall in the same bracket as Shaq. On top of that, he is certainly one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. He is right up there with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who is arguably the best center ever. Some might argue the case of Shaq to be the absolute best. However, more than anything else, it just proves how good a player Shaq was.

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Written by

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Chaitanya Sharma

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Chaitanya is an NBA writer at EssentiallySports. He completed his engineering from SRM University. Having determined an interest in football and basketball, he was inclined towards having a job in the sports industry.

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Edited by

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Bagavathi Eswaran

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