Shaq says he’ll fight Dwight Howard on 1 condition (and it’s pretty likely)

Dwight Howard has a compelling case to one day be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He’s a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time All-Star and NBA champion.

But before Howard is eligible for enshrinement, he has to be fully retired from the NBA for four full seasons. He is seemingly trying to make a return to the league however, as he made a pitch to the Oklahoma City Thunder — who are without Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein at the moment thanks to injuries — on Kevin Garnett’s podcast not long ago.

Former Los Angeles Lakers star big man Shaquille O’Neal and Howard have been going back and forth on social media after the latter challenged the former to a fight on the night of the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. O’Neal claimed on Monday that he will only face off against Howard if the 38-year-old gets enshrined in Springfield, Mass.

“If you woulda read it, noticed it says NBA vs NFL with that being said you can box a NFL guy and then if u win, then u can get The jones of the big man #thegoat #onlyonesuperman, u wait til i’m fifty to challenge me that’s funny just join the show and let’s whoop some NFL guys,” O’Neal wrote on X. “And if u make it to the hall of fame then well do it.”

If Howard doesn’t make a comeback with the Thunder or any other team this season, he won’t be eligible for enshrinement until after the 2025-26 campaign, considering he last played in the NBA in the 2021-22 campaign.

But the Thunder make sense as a landing spot for Howard for more than the fact that the team is depleted at the center position right now. Howard would also bring veteran leadership and playoff experience to a Thunder team whose superstar, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is just 26 years old.

Plus, he would seemingly have a real chance to win his second NBA title if he were to join the Thunder in the near future. At 11-3, Oklahoma City owns the second-best record in the Western Conference and is loaded with talent and depth.

Whether it’s in a few years from now or more far off in the future should Howard make an NBA comeback, folks should consider it incredibly likely that Howard — one of the better big men the game of basketball has seen — will be memorialized in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame at some point in time.