Shaquille O’Neal is no stranger to having a lot of eyeballs on him, both literally and figuratively. For Indiana Fever star Kelsey Mitchell, it’s been an adjustment.
During the Fever’s end-of-season press conference on Saturday, Mitchell said that with the attention Caitlin Clark draws, she and her teammates get a lot of flak for being on the same team as Clark. O’Neal, having played in large and small markets next to superstars like Kobe Bryant throughout his career and dealt with criticism from fans, said Mitchell should take advantage of the attention.
“My advice is to take advantage of all the eyes that are. If the eyes are on one person and you’re next to that person, take advantage of them,” O’Neal told OutKick in a recent interview.
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O’Neal reflected on his journey and the different markets he played in throughout his illustrious career.
“(I went to) a small high school, still being the No. 1 player in the country, starting off in a small market, eventually going to a big market, but then returning back to a small market and win another championship,” O’Neal said.
Mitchell is a free agent at the end of the season and will be in high demand, as the 30-year-old has been an All-Star in each of the last four seasons and averaged a career-high 24.7 points per game this year. While Mitchell praised the organization, her comments drew speculation about whether she may leave the franchise with which she has spent the first nine seasons of her career.
O’Neal called Mitchell a “beautiful young lady and a fabulous young lady” and said he didn’t want to speak for her or about her to avoid breaking the athlete code, but he said he would advise her to stay in Clark’s orbit.
“I wish her well, but my advice if you’re playing next to somebody that has eyes that can bring you extra income, make sure you always stay next to that person,” O’Neal said.
Mitchell will enter free agency in late January, when the Fever will anxiously await her decision.
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No athlete, current or former, may brand himself or herself better than O’Neal. The Basketball Hall of Famer wanted to make sure he surrounded himself with the right people when he began his career.
“I would say the first thing you do, you have to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you,” O’Neal said. “Fifty-two percent of all professional athletes went down and playing have nothing, so we maximized my potential. You know, learned a lot, did a lot, dreamed a lot, created a lot. I think in 1992, the way he marketed me and the way I marketed myself, a lot of a lot of athletes follow that even still to this day.”
O’Neal’s renowned brand manager, Leonard Armato, told OutKick that the epitome of having a successful brand as an athlete is to not only promote oneself but also to make good business decisions. In today’s day and age, Armato said athletes can be their own media companies.
With social media being born during O’Neal’s career, Armato said that the four-time NBA champion was the first to embrace social media and that technology can amplify an athlete’s capabilities. For O’Neal, it was paramount that no matter what he did, he stay true to himself.
“But you always have to be true to yourself. You know, we went first time with Leonard, we had a meeting with the image consulting firm and they tried to create a different image and he stopped the guy in the meeting. He says, ‘I know you’re an expert. I respect you what to do, but image is reality.’ So you definitely have to stay true to yourself,” O’Neal said.
“A lot of people who form characters that they can’t live up to. So, me for example, I am who I am. You know, my image is all about fun. I would love to be known as the ambassador of fun.”
While O’Neal’s brand is strong, he said he has made many mistakes. After making those mistakes, he leaned into his core values and stayed true to himself.
“Every time I fail, I try to memorize what I did wrong and just create a new program. But I don’t like to say ‘You do this, you do this, you do that to each (mistake),’ but if you follow certain core values. To build relationships you have to stay true to yourself to learn from your failures and you have to do things the right in a consistent way, you could create a brand that will be known well beyond after your years of playing and you could be around forever,” O’Neal said.
Armato said a key mistake athletes make is surrounding themselves with the wrong people. Armato has a book coming out in November called “MAXIMIZE,” which details how to build and manage an athlete’s brand. O’Neal wrote the foreword to the book.
