Shaquille O’Neal’s 2001 edition would dominate 2025 Nikola Jokic “Imma make his brothers want to fight me.”

Shaquille O'Neal was the most dominant center of his era and Nikola Jokic has been the most dominant center of this era.

Shaquille O’Neal’s 2001 edition would dominate 2025 Nikola Jokic “Imma make his brothers want to fight me.”

2001 Shaquille O'Neal and 2025 Nikola Jokic

Nikola Jokic is playing the best basketball of his career. The Denver Nuggets superstar is averaging a triple-double, something former greats such as Shaquille O’Neal struggled to do. Their two vastly different styles of play is a product of how the league has changed over the years.

Up until late 2000’s, O’Neal’s bruising domination inside the paint was the go-to style to play the center position. Receive the ball near the restricted area and use their physical attributes along with their skills and footwork to move closer to the basket and score.

YouTube video

In contrast, centers nowadays use a lot more of their skill instead of their physicality. That has enabled players like Jokic and Joel Embiid to routinely drop 40 or 50-points or more. At the same time, the lack of physical tough defense has enabled them to score at will.

The two eras are different, and if players from both eras do play against each other, fans and media would be divided on who would win. But Shaquille O’Neal believes there is no question on who will dominate, as he said during Tuesday’s Inside the NBA segment.

Slavian chicken or where he’s from. I’m getting 40 and they’ll gonna have to double me. I’m going to hit way more twos than you hit threes. And Imma make his brothers want to fight me, cause the first play of the game, elbows out.

Shaquille O’Neal said

The Big Aristotle believes the 2001 version of himself was going to dominate a 2025 Nikola Jokic easily. The physicality will be too much for the Serbian to handle. Moreover, O’Neal believes his physicality can stop the Nuggets star from having a good game.

Shaquille O’Neal does not believe Nuggets-Timberwolves are a rivalry

Nikola Jokic and his Denver Nuggets were to face the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight. Their head coach Michael Malone believes their past battles are reminiscent of a rivalry. But Shaquille O’Neal does not think they are a rivalry now.

It’s not a rivalry. Minnesota’s ok but they are not that good. I’m not talking about last year.

Shaquille O’Neal said

The four-time champion believes this iteration of the Minnesota Timberwolves is not the team that beat the Nuggets in a playoff series. Instead, they have not proved yet that they can go toe-to-toe with the good teams.

O’Neal believes they cannot guard The Joker, hence it should be an easy win for the Nuggets. If the Timberwolves want to win, the entire team has to step it up. So far, he has not seen the indication they can.

O’Neal does not do back-to-back’s

Inside the NBA usually broadcasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But this week, they also had to cover Monday’s games. This meant, Shaquille O’Neal had to be in Atlanta on both Monday and Tuesday to be a part of the show. Except, he forgot about it and was trolled last night.

He appeared tonight and host Adam Lefkoe and the rest of the panel were going through tweets sent to their X account. One of the tweets indicated that Shaquille O’Neal does not do back-to-backs. Shaqaclaus confirmed that he turns into Shaquille Embiid whenever a back-to-back comes around.

That was a shot at Joel Embiid who famously said that he would not play back-to-back games. At the time, O’Neal and his colleagues went hard onto the Philadelphia 76ers superstar for seemingly insulting the game they became legends in.