NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal had a successful stint with the Miami Heat following his time with the Los Angeles Lakers. During this time, he built relationships within the team and also made some enemies. One of them is former coach Stan Van Gundy. The former Heat coach had a bad relationship with O’Neal which was completely broken down when the coach accused him publicly of flopping. Following his exit from the Heat, he coached the Orlando Magic and Dwight Howard for quite some time.

When Van Gundy came under fire for an incident with Howard, O’Neal was more than happy to talk about him. Talking on ‘Inside the NBA’ on TNT, the former NBA champion went all out talking about his former coach. He ridiculed him and his career and asserted how players don’t respect his decision-making.

Shaquille O’Neal went all out talking about his former coach

Stan Van Gundy has been in the NBA for a long time. He has coached teams like the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and Detroit Pistons. However, he hasn’t tasted success when it comes to winning titles. His only notable achievement came with the Magic when he won the Eastern Conference during the 2008-09 season.

This point was exploited brilliantly by Shaquille O’Neal. Van Gundy was caught up in a major controversy after falling out with Dwight Howard. During a press conference, Van Gundy revealed that Howard had asked the management to get rid of him, and shortly after making such statements publicly, Howard himself joined the press conference! 

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Following this horrendous incident, Shaq and the team on ‘Inside the NBA’ took down Van Gundy. With no remorse for his ex-coach, O’Neal said, “Players respect guys with proven resumes. You know Stan has been there a while, he’s a good coach but as you know honestly, good is not good enough. It’s all about winning championships and I think that sometimes they don’t respect his decision making.”

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O’Neal had a terrible relationship with Van Gundy and he surely kept that in mind while bashing the former Heat coach. The two fell apart 

Van Gundy’s comments fired up Shaq

During his time with the Miami Heat, the team lost out disappointingly to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals in 2005. Van Gundy continued as the coach during the next season but left shortly citing personal reasons.

People all around the world speculated that Shaq was somehow behind Van Gundy’s sacking. Years after this, when Van Gundy was coaching the Magic and Shaq was with Phoenix, the coach accused the former NBA champion of flopping. This didn’t sit right with Shaq who made comments on Van Gundy’s career at every given opportunity after this and they still don’t have a good relationship.

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What is your favorite memory of Shaquille O’Neal?