It’s a little early for Shaq to rain on the Wemby parade already but he’s consistent. For five minutes, Shaquille O’Neal was seeing himself in Victor Wembanyama. But he was quickly over that. O’Neal is back to undercutting the reigning Rookie of the Year. He spent Wemby’s entire rookie season downplaying his hype via TNT, elevating Bol Bol at par with him, and sharing cryptic posts on the French phenom without context. But his recent commentary takes the cake.

Shaq came on to the Pat McAfee Show this week and chose chaos. “Wemby is a great player. But I don’t really think you can be dominant when you shoot jumpers a lot. I think if he was an inside player at 7-foot-5, the answer would be yes. But when you shoot jumpers, you’re always going to go up and down,” Shaq’s not-so-humble opinion on the podcast.

He is kind of in the minority. A big section of NBA fans on social media don’t agree with him. There aren’t enough facts to support Shaq’s claim and the argument is thin at best. But as usual, there’s a kind of subtle genius in Shaq’s commentary.

Back in January, the 2023-24 season was enjoying a high-scoring week, and Shaq said something unique on Inside the NBA. “I was Victor Wembanyama before him – You come in, they expect you to turn things around. You have a lot of pressure in you, and a lot of hype coming in.”

He was talking about coming to the NBA in 1992, the first overall draft pick of the Orlando Magic. Pretty soon he made and broke records, won ROTY, led Magic to the playoffs. beat Michael Jordan, and got swept by Houston. By all accounts, he was the unicorn of that generation, more athletic and agile than the best bigs.

From minute one, he earned the title of ‘dominant’ on the court. So he gets the stripes to say, “He’s [Wembanyama] a fine player, and I wish him well. I’m just glad, after not being in the league for so long, to still have my name in that category [dominant].”

Since Shaquille O’Neal’s prime, no other big man has lived up to that hype since Wemby. O’Neal knows best the expectation on him to lead the Spurs. He slightly implies that all the praise will make him complacent. And when Shaq sees himself in a big, he pulls out the tough love.

Wemby responds to Shaquille O’Neal’s opinions well

Take note, Shaq’s a critic, not a hater. There’s a difference. When Dwight Howard was doing great things at Orlando, O’Neal contradicted every praise with blunt reviews. Howard responded by proving Orlando’s original Superman wrong. But there’s really no bad blood between both.

There’s no such thing between Wemby and Shaq either. The Spurs star has a better Shaq impression than Chuck. Unlike his French teammate, Rudy Gobert, when Shaq steps up the criticism, Wemby responds by rewriting history.

The 20-year-old became the first player to post at least 85 points, 35 rebounds and 10 blocks in his first five NBA games since O’Neal back in 1992. He then became the first rookie to post 40+ points and 20+ rebounds in a single game since O’Neal in 1993.

Shaquille O’Neal’s way of telling the youngster to work on his jumpers is weird. But he might be setting the tone before the season starts.