Shaquille O’Neal instilled fear in his opponents. The Los Angeles Lakers legend played with a lot of intensity and was not afraid to get physical on the court with other big men. A former Warriors player believes that this led to an entire generation of players shifting and moving away from playing the center position in the NBA.

Gilbert Arenas holds Shaq responsible for players like Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan playing the power forward positions, as they were afraid to play in the paint against the 4x champion.

“When the brute players got out cause everybody was scared of Shaq, all the new guys coming in like KG—’I don’t wanna go against Shaquille O’Neal, I’m going against the—forward’… So basically, Shaquille O’Neal messed up history. You think about the KGs, you think about the Van Horns, and Tim Duncans all these guys were supposed to be the next generation of 5’s; they were like, ‘f**k no’ and they went to the 4“, said the 3x All-Star in a recent episode of Gil’s Arena.

So according to Arenas, Shaq’s presence made the players transition to the power forward position. This in turn diminished the excellence of the centers for a couple of years, while the power forward position saw a major boost in skill. However, in recent years, the NBA has seen the resurgence of skilled big men. The last two MVP winners were centers.

Although it has been over a decade since Shaq retired from the NBA, this take from Arenas is helpful for Shaquille O’Neal to defend himself against the recent comments from an ESPN employee.

Shaquille O’Neal deserves more respect

During a recent episode of First Take, Chris Russo, famously known as Mad Dog, said that Shaquille O’Neal was not a top-three center in NBA history. One of the arguments he used was that Shaq did not go up against other highly skilled centers during his time in the NBA.

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Based on what Arenas has said, Shaq’s indomitable talent caused skilled centers to convert to other positions. Shaq was far more dominant than any player who has ever played this game before. This is further validated when you realize that Kevin Garnett started playing center the year Shaquille O’Neal retired from the NBA.

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What do you think of Gilbert Arenas calling Shaquille O’Neal responsible for NBA players changing their positions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!