Former LSU basketball star Shaquille O’Neal has helped guide part of the collegiate career of current LSU Basketball star Angel Reese, but are the two actually related?
Shaq has been a mentor to Angel Reese throughout her senior year at LSU, and has motivated her in basketball while also supporting her outside of the arena of sports, but it was a social media post that made people start to wonder if the Angel and Shaq are actually niece and uncle.
Last year, Shaquille O’Neal took to X to defend Angel Reese from former ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann, who decided that Reese gesturing to her ring finger towards Caitlin Clark — signifying that the game is about winning the championship ring — somehow made Reese “a fu**ing idiot.”
Shaq responded to Olbermann by telling him to shut his “dumb *ss up” and “leave Angel Reese alone.” Olbermann later clarified that he was also critical of Caitlin Clark, making many wonder why he thinks both are idiots.
Nevertheless, the mature public convo between the two was viewed by over 19 million people, and that’s when many began to assume that Shaq was related to Reese because she chimed in by referring to O’Neal as “Uncle Shaq.”
It’s also worth noting that in October of 2023, the first athlete that Shaquille O’Neal signed to an endorsement deal with Reebok Basketball — of which Shaq is the President — was Angel Reese.
However, the soon-to-be WNBA star is not actually related to Shaquille O’Neal, and simply refers to him as “Uncle,” explaining that he is something of a father figure to her.
She told USA Today that Shaquille O’Neal has “been there for me through tough times. He just gets it and there’s not a more perfect person for me to be tight with.”
Any basketball player can certainly benefit from having a hall-of-famer by their side, and Shaq is a retired player still very much connected to the game, thanks in part to his work as an analyst on Inside the NBA, but also thanks to his personality, which has endeared many to the former Laker — with the likely exception of Keith Olbermann.
“We have fun,” Reese continued telling USA Today, “and if I need anything, he would help me and he would do that even if I never played basketball again. He doesn’t care about me as a player, he cares about me as a person.”
Angel Reese now takes the next step in her career and it’s a big one. She will turn pro and join the WNBA and no doubt will have Shaq to guide her.
