League-wide jersey retirements have been a sizzling matter not too long ago, and Shaquille O’Neal is the newest Hall-of-Famer to take subject with Miami’s practices.
Shaq’s quantity 32 jersey was retired by the Heat in 2016 for what he achieved in his 4 seasons there.
The subject he has is with Miami’s determination to retire different folks’s jersey, like Michael Jordan’s quantity 23 and Bill Russell’s quantity 6 as a result of they by no means performed for the franchise.
“I hate the fact that they hang up other people’s jerseys,” O’Neal stated on newest episode of The Big Podcast this week. “I hope I’m not disrespecting anyone by this time period.
“This thing is ours. This is what we built. Michael Jordan ain’t never play for the Heat. Bill Russell ain’t never play for the Heat. You did your own thing with your little Celtics family and Chicago family. But this Miami thing? I was one of the original championship families… this is our thing. So I don’t like that, personally.”
Aside for the Bulls after all, the Heat are the one different franchise who’ve MJ’s jersey hanging from the rafters.
The NBA retired Bill Russell’s jersey from all groups after his demise in 2022.
Another Heat legend in Udonis Haslem shared related ideas to Shaq about Russell’s jersey earlier this week, as defined by Bam Adebayo.
“We playing Boston, so you know his [Haslem] feel on that,” Adebayo stated on The Playmaker OGs. “So dog, we in the huddle. Cap came in here and gave his pregame speech and you know they retired Bill Russell’s jersey for everybody in the league. So they got No. 6 in our rafters. And he ended his pregame speech, ‘F**k Bill Russell too!’ I said, ‘Bro, this man dead, OG.’”
Udonis replied to Bam with, “Tell me when you gonna see a Miami Heat jersey hanging in Boston. I love Bill [Russell]. No disrespect to Bill. I love you. He just caught a stray.Will you ever see a Miami Heat jersey hanging in Boston’s rafters? … Why the f**k he got to hang in here. The things that come out of them people mouth when we playing there?”
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