Shaquille O’Neal’s Love for Caitlin Clark’s Signature Skill Sparks Unapologetic Jealousy for Niece Angel Reese
It just seems like yesterday when Shaquille O’Neal declared Angel Reese the greatest athlete to come out of LSU for winning the program a National Championship, something even he couldn’t. However, two seasons later, Shaq believes that her rival Caitlin Clark has some special vision that makes her more loved than his niece Reese.
On Thursday’s episode of Unapologetically Angel, Shaq divulged the reason behind Reese’s popularity. However, the Chicago Sky rookie herself did not accept his solution to bringing the same reverence to her skills. “Why you think people love Caitlin Clark besides her skills?,” Shaq asked Reese. To which she replied, “She can shoot threes from logo.” Agreeing with Reese, Shaq reasoned that Clark was doing something that was never seen before and compared her to the NBA great Steph Curry. However, when he proposed lowering the hoop height in W for women to dunk, Reese objected that even if it is done, it wouldn’t get them the contracts similar to NBA stars, which someplace might have stemmed from her jealousy towards Clark.
“We never seen that before. That’s my point. Steph Curry, a little kid… like Steph Curry. I… I love. You know why I love Steph Curry? Coz I’ve never seen that before. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve seen it a little bit… but I’ve never seen a guy consistently come down and if you look at like if you saw Steph on the street. He ain’t got the LeBron muscles. He not 6′ 9″ he 6′ 10″ He look like a perfect normally office guy, but he… he’s doing stuff that never seen before. She’s doing stuff, we’ never seen before. Never seen nobody do that on a consistent basis,” Shaq remarked.
Notably much like Steph Curry, Clark is known for her logo threes. Even when surpassing Kelsey Plum as the leading women’s scorer in the NCAA, Clark did it with her favorite shot. To commemorate her achievement, Nike placed two billboards one of which had Clark shooting her jump shot, whereas the other end of the street had the bucket. “This was never a long shot,” Nike had written on the board. Even when the Des Moines-born came into the W, she ended the rookie season with the second-highest three-pointers in a single season (122), only behind Sabrina Ionescu (128 in 2023). Therefore, O’Neal recommended that if the hoop is lowered then more female athletes would be able to dunk which will attract more fan following for them.
“There’s a lot of girls in W have done it in spurts, but you know that game. I’m watching in the Final Four… Like damn like and I was a hater coz you know I’m down. She was like… She not going to hit that shot. And bam like damn… She not going to hit that shot… Bam.. like if I say 10 times you’re not going to hit the shot and you hit the shot, that means you’re the truth. So I’m telling you now if you just lower… just lower like this right there. I’m not saying go right there. I’m just you know what you need to do one day,” Shaq added.
According to the Sports Analytics Group at Berkley, the average height of a W athlete is 6 feet whereas that of an NBA player is 6 feet 6 inches. But despite the difference, the hoop is fixed at 10 feet for both NBA and WNBA stars. Hence, while dunking is a common move in the NBA, it isn’t so in the W. As of June 2023, there have been only 33 dunks in the WNBA. However, according to Shaq if the hoop height was lowered then more women would be able to attract a special fan following due to the rarity of the shot in their league. But Reese who might have been jealous got triggered and didn’t look to agree with her uncle. Although it wasn’t the first time that Shaq had praised Reese.
Shaquille O’Neal praises Caitlin Clark over Angel Reese
During a game between the Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever in August this year, Shaq had praised Clark despite Reese being a part of the matchup. According to him, he was completely in awe of the generational player’s skills after she had helped her team defeat the Sky by a 100-81 margin.
“Caitlin does everything right. I never spoke about her [before] because [Angel] is my girl, but I can truthfully say-Caitlin Clark is for real. I’m watching her play, and I’m trying to be upset, but she makes the right pass, makes the right play…. Girls try to beat her up and she doesn’t really complain. She’s a great one, even early on (in her career),” Shaq stated. Notably, Clark had hit 31 points in that game with 4 rebounds and 12 assists, once again proving that she was as good a playmaker as she was an alpha. When it came to threes, she hit 5 out of 9 shots.
While his previous appreciation of Clark might have gone unnoticed by Reese, this one is surely going to hurt her since it was done on her podcast. And perhaps, Reese too will develop a special skill other than rebounding that will get her more fans.
