Shaquille O'Neal isn't sugarcoating how he feels about NBA stars skipping the Slam Dunk Contest.

"What's the word… soft? You can tell them I said it. They're soft, and they're scared," O'Neal said, according to an X post by the Athletic and reposted by the Legion Hoop.

The Slam Dunk Contest once served as a launching pad for some of the league's biggest legends. Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter all treated it as a defining stage early in their careers, using it to build their national profile in front of a massive audience.

That's changed in recent years. Modern superstars routinely pass on the event, citing injury risk, in-season workload management, and the fear of a failed attempt going viral for all the wrong reasons.

For O'Neal, none of that is a good enough excuse, as is evident from his comments published on the X post. He's argued players collecting max contracts owe something back to fans who pay steep prices for All-Star tickets, pointing to a lesson his father instilled in him about the responsibility that comes with entertaining a paying crowd.

While he shattered backboards and posted 4,000 career dunks, Shaq actively skipped the event he now blasts current superstars for avoiding.

Fans react to Shaq’s ‘soft’ statement

Fans had mixed reactions to Shaq dissing everyone for skipping the NBA dunk contest, when he himself did not participate in any. This is evident from the comment section of the X post.

“To my knowledge, Shaq never participated in a dunk contest. Dwight Howard would have wiped the floor with him. Shaq's getting a little delusional in his older years,” said one fan.

Another fan echoed the sentiment, saying:

“Shaq himself didn’t even do the dunk contest???”

In an interview with CNBC, Shaq denied participating in the NBA dunk contest because he felt like his thing was more power, rather than aerial ability. Taking a dig with a comparison, one fan said:

“Even Giannis did the dunk contest when he was like 6’9 as a rookie.”

One fan, however, agreed with Shaq's statement, saying:

"Shaq said what everybody’s thinking: If you’re an NBA star, step into the Dunk Contest and show out."

The comments about his apparent hypocritical approach kept coming in, with one fan saying:

“A dude who never competed in the dunk contest said y'all soft for not participating in a dunk contest,” stated another fan.

Another supported the take, saying:

"He is totally right. You had to live through the 80s to understand what it meant for Jordan and Wilkins to lead the league in scoring and also show up in the dunk contest, and then also care about winning the All-Star Game. This is the main reason LeBron ruined the league."

One fan gave his take on the need for dunking and how the changed times have made it useless.

“Dunk contest contestants entered them to raise a player’s profile and help them with endorsement deals back in the day.  That’s no longer needed for major stars. The league isn’t struggling.  The entire point of it has gone away for the players. And it was AWFUL in the 90s.”

Whether or not O'Neal's comments change anything about star participation going forward, the debate over who "owes" fans a show remains as unresolved as ever heading into the next All-Star Weekend.

Do you think NBA stars are obligated to compete in the Dunk Contest, or is skipping it a fair call? 

Written by

Zaid Quraishi

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi