{"id":837623,"date":"2026-08-01T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837623\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T11:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:02:14","slug":"shaquille-oneal-claims-knicks-got-lucky-with-nba-title-compares-jalen-brunson-to-kobe-bryant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837623\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal Claims Knicks Got Lucky With NBA Title; Compares Jalen Brunson To Kobe Bryant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a>, the NBA legend, recently recorded an episode of \u2018The Big Podcast\u2019 with Adam Lefkoe and Iman Shumpert<\/a>, where he spoke about New York\u2019s NBA championship run this year in a manner that left the former Knicks<\/a> player Shumpert feeling unsettled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have four championships. Two of them were luck\u2026 Don\u2019t you think the next championship was a little lucky this year?\u201d O\u2019Neal asked<\/a> Shumpert.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t get that tip, it\u2019s over,\u201d said O\u2019Neal while recalling OG Anunoby\u2019s famous tip-in. \u201cLet me finish. If you don\u2019t get that tip, you don\u2019t win that game. If dumba\u2013 Fox don\u2019t try to f\u2013king score with eight seconds left and OG don\u2019t get the block, that\u2019s two incidents right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don\u2019t let the 29-point lead go. I\u2019m just saying it was a little bit of luck in there,\u201d O\u2019Neal added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Shumpert looked at O\u2019Neal in confusion, refused his claims, and provided counterarguments.<\/p>\n

\u201cJalen Brunson was hurt,\u201d Shumpert said before claiming the Knicks would have won in six games if they failed to complete the 29-point comeback. \u201cSo they were lucky that they were born before these n\u2014-s? That\u2019s crazy,\u201d he added to question O\u2019Neal\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

The NBA legend went on to admit that his first NBA championship with the Lakers (2000) and the final one he got with the Heat (2004) both had an element of luck involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t win that Game 7, they would have probably traded me like they did after I won that final championship,\u201d said O\u2019Neal as he recalled his experience with the Lakers against the Trail Blazers in the 2000 Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause remember, those MFers came back, we were up 3-1, and they were suddenly blowing us out. If we didn\u2019t win that Game 7, there would be no Shaq and Kobe,\u201d O\u2019Neal concluded.<\/p>\n

So clearly O\u2019Neal believes that even the greatest things in history can come out of situations involving a certain level of luck that plays in the winner\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

But despite feeling this way about their championship run, O\u2019Neal seemingly feels Jalen Brunson<\/a> has done a lot to earn his respect with this championship.<\/p>\n

During his recent appearance on the \u2018Old Man and the Three\u2019 podcast, O\u2019Neal spoke about how Brunson reminded him of Kobe Bryant<\/a> recently. He even went as far as to claim that he knew after a conversation with Brunson that the Knicks are going to win the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cKenny and I cornered (Brunson). We had a show right before the playoffs, and I like to mess with guys. I said, \u2018Hey man, you going to win a championship this year?\u2019 He had that look in his eye like when I used to ask Kobe,\u201d said<\/a> O\u2019Neal about his interaction with Brunson.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike he really had that look where I was like \u2018Hey, they were going to do it.\u2019 And then when they played Atlanta and lost those games, I got nervous. But the way they stepped up, came back, and were beating teams, they actually did it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it seems a bit contradictory for O\u2019Neal to say that he knew the Knicks would win even before the playoffs but felt they got lucky at the end.<\/p>\n

Brunson averaged 28.4 points, 6.1 assists, and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 46.5% from the field and 36.3% from behind the three-point line in the 19 games that the Knicks played in the postseason. To pull off such a performance with an injured hand<\/a> through the playoffs is not an element of luck.<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson has been vocal about his die-hard fandom of Kobe Bryant<\/a> throughout his career. So for O\u2019Neal to think Brunson\u2019s demeanor resembled Bryant\u2019s is not out of the ordinary in terms of the lifestyle influence he\u2019s had on him. But it is a bit shocking to hear that O\u2019Neal thinks the Knicks got lucky with the championship.<\/p>\n

Do you think O\u2019Neal is discrediting the Knicks\u2019 championship? Or is he simply pushing them to win a second one and prove him wrong? Let us know what you think in the comments section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal, the NBA legend, recently recorded an episode of \u2018The Big Podcast\u2019 with Adam Lefkoe and Iman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-837623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}