Perhaps by the time the WNBA has an O’Neal on the court, we’d have Comissioner O’Neal. At least that’s what Shaquille O’Neal is campaigning for. While his daughter, Me’Arah, recently accomplished a personal milestone in her college career, Shaq is pushing an agenda to boost WNBA viewership. His presentation needs a little work though. After his point on Angel Reese’s podcast was lost in his questionable comments, A’ja Wilson pushed back on this demand. Without referencing Shaq, the reigning MV’3 shut down the demand to lower WNBA rims. Did that make Shaq give up? Not even the slightest.

A’ja throwing out the ‘lower the rims’ discussion spurred the debate further. O’Neal took notice and was on Instagram flexing the majority seeing his point of view. “60% of the fan said Dunking their favorite thing. The WNBA has none of that. So they make much less money,” he wrote.

But Wilson is also one of Shaq’s favorite WNBA stars. So he disclosed his true agenda to make an appeal to her. “Just trying to get you that 300 million dollars you deserve @aja22wilson #shaqwbnacommisioner . Love yall @wnba.”

Interesting hashtag there. Shaq has been demanding better pay for the NBA’s sister league and has been repeatedly told the hurdle is the rlatively low viewership. It looks like he wants replace Cathy Engelbert as WNBA commissioner to make some drastic changes.

Shaquille O’Neal has been campaigning for the WNBA to lower the rims for a while now. The last time, Candace Parker slammed the idea down as hard as her one-handed game-winner dunk in 2008. In his own post, Shaq commented they could do an experiment with his suggestion. “Do it for the wnba all star game and watching the ratings go through the roof,” he wrote.

Wilson hasn’t responded to this comment. But it’s unlikely her stance would change.

A’ja Wilson gave the cons of Shaq’s suggestion

A’ja Wilson was on Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart’s podcast, Roommates Show last week when they brought up the ‘lower the rims’ discussion. Brunson is one of those who thinks they should shorten the height of the baskets. But Wilson asked him, “What is it going to do?” 

After leaving the show’s hosts stuttering, Wilson answered her own question. Lowering the rims, as she put it, “could change all our shots. Do y’all not understand that?”

She was very stern about it too. Nonetheless, Wilson had an elegant solution for the demands for more dunking in the WNBA. “I would much rather just like, ‘okay, let’s get in the gym, let’s work.’ You never know, next year I might dunk, Jalen. And y’all better go crazy.”

Wilson would rather work on her vertical and dunk with the current status quo. Shaq is trying to facilitate that. He has a lot more people on his side but there are also others who agree with A’ja. And the cons seemingly outweigh just the demand for slam dunks.