With all the excitement surrounding the jersey retirement of former Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal on Tuesday night, the Shaq-Howard feud was destined to raise some questions to each of them concerning the other.
In the past these two haven't had much to say about each other, besides Shaq criticizing Howard's ability on the court, but last night Shaq offered him a challenge, and even explained the reasoning behind some of his comments in the past, according to ESPN.
"I'm just doing to him what others did to me," O'Neal said. "I was a young kid averaging 20 [points a game]. Someone asked Kareem what he thought of me. He said, 'He's an OK player, but he doesn't have any championships.'
"It wasn't really a diss, I just think it was Kareem's issuance of a challenge to me to step it up a little bit. I'm not criticizing the guy, I'm just issuing a challenge."
According to the L.A. Times, Shaq also listed out a few things Howard can do in order for him to be less critical of him.
"Right now he's averaging 16 points. From one big man to another, that's not enough," O'Neal said. "He should average 28. He should probably get like three shots a quarter. He should get four points a quarter, there goes 16 points right there. Now you need to get me four offensive rebounds and put them back, there goes another eight points. And when he gets to the free-throw line 10 times, I need you to make five. That's [29] points right there. That's how my system works. My system was seven points a quarter. If I didn't give people 28 and 10, I felt like a failure. I was getting doubled, fronted and backed and all that. He's not getting any of that. So he needs to step up and really, really dominate."
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