All the way back in 2015, Shaquille O’Neal’s oldest son Shareeftold TMZ Sports he thought he could beat LeBron James in a game of 1-on-1. Shareef said the same thing when he was asked about it again in 2017. But despite the fact Shareef is apparently dead-set on knocking LeBron off his pedestal, it doesn’t sound like LeBron is holding it against him. In fact, it appears as though LeBron is one of Shareef’s biggest supporters right now.
On Tuesday, the 2018 McDonald’s All-Americans were named, and while Shareef did receive a nomination for the team, he wasn’t ultimately selected to the squad. He was obviously very disappointed about it and let it be known on Twitter.
His dad was pretty pissed off about it, too.
But rather than simply allowing himself to be disappointed about it, LeBron encouraged Shareef to look at his McDonald’s All-American snub as motivation. LeBron devoted an entire Instagram post to Shareef on Wednesday morning.
Shareef appreciated the encouragement.
For the record, LeBron himself was a McDonald’s All-American back in 2003. He was actually named the MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Game (no surprise there). But as many people have pointed out, there are quite a few current NBA stars who didn’t get picked to play in the game, including a couple of recent NBA MVPs.
So while missing out on the chance to make the McDonald’s All-American Game obviously sucks, it’s not the end of the world for Shareef. The 6-foot-9 high school star is slated to attend Arizona next season before testing out his NBA dreams.
