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When Dwight Howard stepped on stage for his Hall of Fame enshrinement, he wasted no time addressing a familiar name: Shaquille O’Neal.
The two shared one of the NBA’s longest-running and pettiest feuds, but Howard made it clear the rivalry is officially over.
“Shaq, we did not always see eye to eye, but in hindsight, I believe it was just sibling rivalries,” Howard said during his speech. “We are brothers in this fraternity of basketball, and sometimes brothers fight over the stupidest stuff. I really blame Soulja Boy. But I just want y’all to know the true, original Superman is in the building, and it’s an honor to have you walk me out in this arena of greatness.”
The feud stretched back to the 2008 Slam Dunk Contest, when Howard wore a cape with the Superman logo. O’Neal, the self-proclaimed “original Superman,” believed Howard was trying to steal his nickname.
The back-and-forth turned ugly over the years, with Shaq calling Howard a “bus rider” during the Lakers’ 2020 championship run, mocking his stint in Taiwan, and even suggesting he didn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
Howard fired back by branding Shaq the “fake Superman” and at one point even challenging him to a boxing match.
But O’Neal, who presented Howard at the ceremony, insisted the animosity was never real.
“It wasn’t that we had a problem,” O’Neal told NBA TV’s Dennis Scott. “You know my leadership style, I learned it from you. I’m hard on guys to motivate them. Some people can take it, some people can’t. But when we met I told him it’s never hard feelings, I just did that to make him angry. Whenever I made him angry he played well.”
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