Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard’s beef is no secret to the world of the NBA. The two former Orlando Magic big men fired shots at each other after Dwight Howard took the moniker of “Superman” in 2008. Shaquille O’Neal, who calls himself by that name, was understandably upset with Howard, and since then, tensions persisted between the pair.

But even with the beef between them, Shaq had some admissions about the 38-year-old. On JJ Redick‘s TheOldMan&TheThree podcast, the Big Diesel talked about Howard and said, “I have to like you to be able to say something about you. And I actually like Dwight… And sometimes I will add fuel to the fire to see what type of people they are.”

The comment came after Redick asked Shaq about why he targets Dwight and takes shots at him out of the blue. The NBA Hall of Famer explained that he pokes Dwight intentionally to see if there’s an emotional reaction to it. Calling himself the president of the “Big Men Alliance”, Shaq wants to see if anyone can overthrow him, and if his target responds emotionally, that makes clear to Shaq that they won’t make it as the president of the said alliance.

Keeping with the theme of big men, JJ Redick was on the receiving end of a question from Shaq, which put the commentator in a tough spot.

Shaquille O’Neal Put JJ Redick in Tough Spot

When JJ Redick was the guest on Shaq’s The Big Podcast a few days ago, the four-time NBA champion asked him about the best big man in the Orlando Magic’s history. “So you probably got Dwight [Howard] over me as the Magic’s best big man ever. Dare you to say it, dare you to say it,” said Shaq to Redick. (After 57:10)

The choices were Shaq Dwight and Greg Kite, but Redick sidestepped the question and talked about the top 10 guys in NBA history and said that players like Shaq and Tim Duncan are not discussed as much as they should be.

With all that, Redick did get away without answering Shaq’s question, but everyone knows who the best is in the 7-footer’s mind.