***Update*** (3/24): Shaq now says he was just kidding.

…

It was weird enough when NBA star Kyrie Irving said on a podcast, “This is not even a conspiracy theory… The Earth is flat.”

It got weirder when Wilson Chandler‏ and Draymond Green appeared to agree with him.

But Shaquille O’Neal, too?!

He made these comments on The Big Podcast With Shaq.

… It’s true. The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Listen, there’s three ways to manipulate the mind: What you read, what you see, and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, “Oh, Columbus discovered America,” but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn’t discover America! So, listen, I drive from coast to coast, and this shit is flat to me. I’m just sayin’. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle. And all that stuff about gravity. Have you looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It’s not. The world is flat.

First of all, can someone please explain to me how anyone could go up and down at a 360-degree angle…?

Just because Columbus wasn’t the first person to discover America — and some teachers pass along bad information in school — doesn’t mean everything you learned was wrong.

2 + 2 still equals 4, Shaq.

You played basketball with a sphere, Shaq.

I thought NFL players were supposed to be the ones who suffered brain injuries…

Shaq, by the way, has a Doctorate in Education from Florida’s Barry University. Not an honorary doctorate. A real I-wrote-a-thesis Doctorate.

Either he needs to give that diploma back or he’s doing a hell of a good job messing with everyone.

Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach isn’t giving up on that latter idea:

… that’s what’s so great about this new NBA narrative. It raises so many questions, from where players think the sun goes at night to why they believe they travel to different time zones. Of course, there remains the possibility that Shaq is just trolling us all. In which case, kudos to him for coming up with some fantastically elaborate fiction about how China cannot be under us, because I can’t get enough of NBA players and their flat-Earth theories — real or imaginary. Keep ’em coming.

This better be an elaborate joke. These people are making Creationists look smart.

(Image via Shutterstock)



