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Shaquille O’Neal Clears Up Donovan Mitchell Criticism: “I Was Just Testing His Temperature”

NBA Hall of Famer and TNT host Shaquille O’Neal is one source of biting hot takes and striking controversy, and it’s a reputation that Shaq has amounted to which ultimately leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Just earlier this year, Shaq faced some major backlash after an awkward exchange with Donovan Mitchell in a live TV interview. Speaking to the young star who displayed a 36-point game that night, Shaq suggested that Mitchell ‘doesn’t have what it takes to get to the next level’, to which Mitchell had a short and candid response, saying ‘aight’.

Now months since their engage on TV, Shaq recently appeared on ‘All The Smoke’ podcast and had the opportunity to clear up his comments regarding the 24-year old Jazz shooting guard. According to Shaq, he made those comments because he wanted to test the youngster’s temperature.

“I kinda feel sorry that I kinda hurt this feelings, but I was just testing his temperature. So when I say, ‘hey man, I don’t think you got what it takes,’ I want him to be like ‘ok, old man, watch this,’ but he’s doing that, he’s showing us now that. That’s exactly what I wanted.”