NBA legend and TNT commentator Shaquille O’Neal speaks softly and carries a big body, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, and the big man was full of insights and self-revelation as he addressed the latest Kyrie Irving scandal.
Irving, the controversial Brooklyn Nets point guard, is under fire for promoting allegedly anti-Semitic content on social media. Irving has implied in his defense that merely sharing something on social media isn’t necessarily promoting it.
Being a very early adopter of Twitter, O’Neal says he immediately recognized the power of social media and that he knew he “had to be very responsible.” O’Neal says matter-of-factly: “You have to be aware of what you’re doing.”
Citing his own experience as a guide, O’Neal agreed with TNT studiomate Ernie Johnson that posting something is promoting it. In the discussion, O’Neal revealed his own methodology for his successful social media activity.
“I try to make people happy. I try to make people smile,” O’Neal said. “My formula has always been the same: 60% to make you laugh, 30% to inspire you, and 10% whatever I’m selling, I’m selling.”
But O’Neal’s commentary ran much deeper than how he gets the laughs and makes the money. “I stand for equality of all people. I’ve always been like that. It don’t matter what religion, it don’t matter where you’re from…That’s how I was raised.”
