Shaquille O'Neal, one of the most dominant players in NBA history, says he has zero interest in keeping up with anyone in the league, past or present. Asked how many NBA players he texts, the four-time champion gave a blunt, one-word answer before unloading on the culture of professional athletes and celebrities alike.
"None. I don't like athletes or superstars because they're a**holes," O'Neal told the New York Post, as Fox News Digital reported.
The 54-year-old New Jersey native didn't stop there. He went further, distancing himself from the entire celebrity class and making a case for something vanishingly rare among retired professional athletes: the value of finishing your education.
O'Neal said he made a deliberate choice roughly a decade ago to separate himself from the world of fame and its inhabitants.
"I denounced myself from being a celebrity about 10 years ago because those people are weird. I'm not weird."
That line alone would get most public figures dragged across social media for a week. But O'Neal has built a post-playing career on exactly this kind of candor, a willingness to say plainly what many people think privately about the behavior of the rich and famous.
His comments land at a moment when the NBA continues to face criticism from fans and media figures over player conduct. Charles Barkley recently ripped NBA players for sitting out games, calling 195 absences "disrespectful", another Hall of Famer willing to hold today's players to account.
O'Neal played 19 seasons in the NBA. He made 15 All-Star teams. He won four championships. And now, by his own telling, he wants nothing to do with the people who populate the league he once ruled.
What separates O'Neal's remarks from the usual retired-athlete grumbling is where he steered the conversation next, toward education. O'Neal left LSU after his junior year to enter the NBA draft, a path that made him fabulously wealthy but left him without a degree. He went back. He finished his bachelor's. Then he earned an MBA. Then a Ph.D. in education.
He's clearly tired of people assuming those credentials were handed to him.
"The funniest thing I get is, 'Oh it's honorary.' I say, 'No, it's not. I had to go to school and write papers and do all that stuff.'"
That frustration is telling. In a culture that treats athletes as brands first and people second, O'Neal is pushing back against the assumption that a famous man couldn't possibly have done the work. He did. And he wants people, especially young people, to know why.
"I'm very super successful without that, but I wanted to stress to my children and children around that education is very important."
There's no policy debate here, no partisan angle. Just a man with four rings and a doctorate telling kids that the diploma matters more than the dunk. In a sports world increasingly consumed by NIL deals and early-entry money, that message cuts against the grain. Fox News noted that O'Neal also talked about the NIL era, though the specific details of those remarks were not included in the report.
O'Neal's willingness to call out the people around him, bluntly, by name or by category, is part of a broader pattern among veteran sports voices who refuse to play along with the modern athlete-as-untouchable-brand model. The professional sports world has seen no shortage of friction between public figures and the expectations placed on them, whether it's managers defending players from fans or retired legends refusing to coddle the next generation.
What makes O'Neal's comments notable isn't just the language. It's the completeness of the rejection. He isn't saying some players are difficult. He isn't carving out exceptions for old teammates or close friends. He said "none." Zero texts. No contact. He wants out of the entire ecosystem.
That kind of wholesale dismissal from a man who spent nearly two decades at the top of the NBA says something about what the league's internal culture looks like from the inside. Fans see the highlight reels. O'Neal saw the locker rooms, the entourages, the egos, and decided he'd had enough.
The sports media world itself has faced its own turbulence lately. High-profile departures and controversies have reminded audiences that the intersection of fame, media, and professional sports is rarely as polished as it appears on camera.
There's a reason O'Neal's comments will travel far beyond the sports page. Millions of Americans, the ones who pay for tickets, buy the jerseys, and subsidize the arenas, have watched professional athletes become increasingly disconnected from the people who made them rich. The entitlement. The load management. The social media posturing. The sense that gratitude is optional.
O'Neal is telling those fans: you're not wrong. He saw it up close, and he walked away.
His emphasis on education adds a layer that most athlete commentary lacks. He didn't just complain. He offered an alternative. Go to school. Do the work. Earn the credential. Don't assume the money or the fame will carry you forever. That's a message aimed squarely at the NIL generation, where teenagers are signing six-figure deals before they've finished a single college semester.
Across professional sports, dramatic moments continue to remind fans of the unpredictable nature of the games they love, from a White Sox anthem singer collapsing during a pregame performance to the daily grind of a long season. O'Neal's point is that the human element, character, discipline, education, matters more than the spectacle.
Whether today's players listen is another question entirely. O'Neal isn't holding his breath. He's not even holding a phone.
When a man with four championship rings, 15 All-Star selections, and a Ph.D. says the people in his own profession aren't worth a text message, maybe the league should spend less time marketing its brand and more time examining its culture.
