When Shaq was playing in the NBA, he was one of the most entertaining players in the league. That was true both on and off the court, and he’s relayed his off-court antics into athletic retirement pretty well.
Now a member of the legendary NBA on TNT panel, Shaq can always be counted on for a laugh. Sometimes the chuckles come from his incidental mistakes, but more often than not he’s very calculated in his entertainment techniques.
It doesn’t get much more calculated than learning pieces of a foreign language, does it?
On Monday, following the Denver Nuggets win over the Portland Trail Blazers, Shaq flexed his linguistics to Serbian star Nikola Jokic. Right before getting to the English portion of his question, Shaq confused the heck out of The Joker with some recently-learned Serbian.
It's not the first time Shaq has shown off his many tongues. Back in April, Shaq attempted to say goodbye to Luke Doncic in Slovinian. It… didn’t go so well…
Shaq may have taken a page out of former teammate Kobe Bryant’s book with this, although Kobe learned languages for a wildly different reason. It wasn’t to make people laugh, it was to get right inside their head.
This is a quote for Jusef Nurkic, taken from a visit he had with ESPN.
“He actually says a word in my language and I was like, ‘I didn’t hear right, he can’t speak my language, right?’ So we go back and forth, and he goes again to free throws and he repeats that. It was curse word, but it’s like … I’m pretty sure he said that. Then I was, you know, after a couple years in the league, he was, like, preparing himself when he plays against some teams, he will try to learn a little bit about every player he’ll play.”
The different reasons for linguistic learning almost perfectly summarizes Kobe and Shaq as people, and their tumultuous relationship while they were teammates.
(H/T NBA on TNT)
