There was a minute when Dwight Howard and Shaquille O’Neal were on the same page. Rudy Gobert was the unintentional peacemaker. But now he’s the cause of division. After the retired center and the reigning DPOY went through a series of back-and-forths, Howard weighed in. Outsiders claim Shaq is treating Gobert the way he treated Dwight. But DH12 threw out the token truce with O’Neal to give Gobert the benefit of the doubt this week on Above the Rim.

Shaq’s usual target, Dwight Howard initially was neutral while talking about the O’Neal-Gobert beef. He could see O’Neal’s point that players aren’t living up to the multi-million contracts. However, he also gets why Gobert took it personally. He even admitted, “I done got on Rudy a lot because I just want him to be great.”

Still, Howard lists all the ways Gobert is accomplished, from playing in France, winning silver at the Olympics, and four NBA DPOY awards. “He [Gobert] just in a different era and it ain’t his style to play the way that you know Shaq want him to play.” Howard said while adding, “I get what Shaq saying. He want him to be mean.”

He’s heard the parallels to Shaq’s constant criticism of Howard and the latter said it’s not the same. Pulling his uncanny Shaq impression, Howard said, “I feel like he’s [O’Neal] trying to do for him [Gobert] is how he was saying that he was trying to do with me. But he wasn’t doing it, he wasn’t doing it, … he trying to wake Rudy up and make him play, I understand that but he wasn’t doing that s*** to me. What he was doing with me was, ‘Oh, that’s not good enough, 45 and 18 that’s not enough.’” That last bit made it feel like Shaq was in the studio.

The feud reached an all-time high when Shaquille O’Neal declared Rudy Gobert the worst of all time. Gobert responded by accusing Shaq of using him for relevance. O’Neal once again responded to his comments in his podcast and others. Occasionally, he’d re-share Howard’s criticism of Gobert. But it’s a different story now.

Howard said that it’s not Shaq’s job to act like Phil Jackson coaching his players. Howard declared that Shaq is the most dominant NBA player in history and he should be elevating younger players to reach that level too instead of putting them down.

Dwight Howard deviates from Shaquille O’Neal’s stance

Until recently, even Dwight Howard questioned the validity of Rudy Gobert’s DPOY wins. “I never wanna say nothing negative about any players, but I don’t think he deserved those Defensive Player of the Years like he got them. I feel like he’s a great team defender, but for what he did to get those Defensive Player of the Years, I don’t see it, I don’t see him being an elite defender,” he said on Gil’s Arena.

Shaq pushed Howard’s comments like validation on his social media pages. Now Howard is apologetic about his commentary. He had a detailed analysis of how Gobert’s style is different from what Shaq expects and misunderstood.

After explaining both Shaq’s and Gobert’s sides, Howard said, “Shout to Rudy, I done gave you a hard time, I was in my feelings, but you doing your Thug Thizzle.” We’d have to see if Shaq notices now.

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