Thank God for mamas.
It all started as a joke, but Golden State Warriors reserve center JaVale McGee’s mom thinks Hall of Fame big man Shaquille O’Neal crossed the line into cyberbullying.
“He cyberbullied my son,” Pamela McGee told The Undefeated. “Totally inappropriate. Shaquille needs to lose his job or be suspended. The NBA needs to make a stand.”
Two things were happening that made all this possible: Shaq has a television segment on Inside the NBA that highlights basketball bloopers called “Shaqtin’ a Fool,” and JaVale McGee kept doing dumb shit.
He was basically a gold mine for Shaq’s segment, and since he kept feeding material to the center-turned-announcer, Shaq kept using it. McGee argued that he wasn’t the only one doing dumb shit in the league, but Shaq was unnaturally obsessed with him. McGee also argued that he was starting to become more known for his mistakes than for his own court production, which was hurting his money.
The feud continued for years, finally coming to threats. Recently basketball fingers turned to Twitter fingers, and it all started after Shaq debuted a “Doctor Strange” parody on Inside the NBA that noted that the onetime NBA slipup had actually been playing well in recent months.
McGee wasn’t amused and told Shaq to take his (nuts emoji) out of his mouth.
To which Shaq responded—and then things went off the rails.
But the beef was squashed after Shaq’s mom called for a cease-fire.
“I have orders from the top to leave it alone,” O’Neal said, according to TMZ Sports. “My mama.”
Shaq said his mother told him, “Stop this silliness. Leave him alone.”
“That’s the end of the beef. You won’t be hearing about it from my side anymore. Mama has spoken,” Shaq said.
Read more at The Undefeated and TMZ Sports.