Fat Joe Breaks Shaquille O’Neal’s “Big Men” Club Rules as He Risks His Wrath With Karl Anthony-Towns Take

There are multiple occasions when Fat Joe was scared of his ginormous friend. Over the course of his decades-long friendship with Shaquille O’Neal, the big man has made the rap mogul feel very puny. They were either jokes or unintentional. But this time, Fat Joe touched a big man nerve. We know how touchy O’Neal is about the subject. He threatened to beat up Jalen Rose for mislabeling someone outside the Big Man Alliance. When he gets wind of what Fat Joe said on 7pm in Brooklyn, the rapper’s going to have trouble.

It’s well known that Fat Joe loves basketball, the Knicks, and Carmelo Anthony. On Melo’s podcast this week, he felt comfortable enough to drop a hot take on Karl-Anthony Towns. “I don’t think I’ve seen a better offensive big man in my life than KAT.”

Insert monocle emojis, side-eye monkey GIFs, and slow claps. Melo preferred to tie his shoelaces than jump into this conversation. But it’s Fat Joe’s opinion. He’s entitled to it. Till he dragged some legends in the process. “I’ve sat in the game and watch KAT do ten moves. You cannot know what he’s gonna give you. Hit em’ with the left. Hit em’ with the right. Spin on you this way, that way, that way. That’s impossible to guard…best offensively ever. I’m talking about [Hakeem] Olajuwon, Shaq is the most dominant big man but he ain’t doing this…my take is he’s [KAT] too hard to guard.”

Note: this episode was recorded when KAT was leading the Knicks to the NBA Cup quarterfinals. But the Knicks lost to the Atlanta Hawks and fell out of the tournament bracket. There was some chatter about KAT’s tendency to choke in key games, though he had 19 points. The Inside Guys didn’t talk about him or the Knicks much after Trae Young was directly tagging Shaq in posts.

But Shaquille O’Neal is also the harshest KAT critic. He was especially critical about Towns’ first official regular season game as a Knick. He didn’t think KAT was aggressive enough in the season opener loss to the Celtics. Fat Joe just put a big man-sized target on his back.

Shaq is picky about the Big Man Alliance

Shaq and Fat Joe go way back to the days the latter collaborated with DJ Diesel on his rap albums. When the Miami Heat traded Shaq to Phoenix, Fat Joe was the first one O’Neal told. His 7’2″ frame lurking in the dark studio gave Fat Joe a heart attack but that’s the cost of being besties with a big man.

And as the president of the Big Man Alliance, the MDE center Shaquille O’Neal is very nitpicky about the club. Recently, Jalen Rose made the mistake of counting Anthony Davis and Charles Barkley on it. Shaq cut him off and said, “Power forwards are not bigs. Don’t do that… You said ‘I know your hall of fame bigs can appreciate’. He’s [Charles Barkley] not a big, all for it.”

Karl-Anthony Towns is able to play the center and power forward positions. ESPN calls him the Knicks’ center while the NBA officially lists him as a ‘center-forward’ in the positionless basketball era. Fat Joe said on Melo’s podcast that the Knicks weren’t utilizing KAT as real center. But just before the podcast, New York had switched him to that post and he’s been a rebounding force since.

Like the time Fat Joe called Shaq an “honorary” police officer (he’s a real officer serving in Atlanta, LA, and Miami), this will invite Shaq’s anger.