Shaquille O’Neal Says He’d Beat Up Kyrie Irving For Not Getting Vaccinated: ‘If He Was On My Team I’d Put My Hands On Him’

Shaquille O’Neal says if NBA champion Kyrie Irving was on his team and refused to get vaccinated against Covid, he’d get physical with the point guard.

Irving recently made it clear his unvaccinated status will not change despite Kevin Durant’s knee injury that is expected to sideline the Nets forward for more than a month.

“Is ole boy going to sacrifice?” Shaq said about Irving potentially changing his vaccine stance after Durant’s injury on the most recent episode of The Bid Podcast with Shaq. “I don’t see how the team could put up with that,” he continued. “If he was on my team I’d have to put hands on him.”

Because Irving is unvaccinated, New York City bars him from entering the Nets’ arena on home games, but the organization recently chose to use their star point guard as a part-time player.

O’Neal explained that Irving only being available for away games is hurting the team. “I know for a fact that these windows of winning championships you don’t have them a lot,” he said. “All that stuff just playing on the road, you can’t get in no rhythm like that.”

According to the Lakers legend, by only playing in road games Irving is damaging his individual relationship with his teammates too.

“When I won my floor, we was close,” O’Neal said. “We was tight, we fought, we argued, we went to each others kids birthday parties, we went to parties on the road, we held secrets, we did a lot of things, we stuck up for each other, we trusted each other, we did a lot of things, you can’t do that with people coming in and out.”

The Brooklyn Nets are 5-4 overall since Irving’s return and 3-2 in games he played in this season.

Listen above via The Big Podcast with Shaq