It's safe to say Los Angeles Lakers icon and NBA great Shaquille O'Neal is not a big fan of superteams. In fact, he doesn't respect the players who team up to win a championship instead of competing hard against each other (cue LeBron James, Kevin Durant and many more).

During his appearance on the Big Shot Bob podcast of Robert Horry, Shaq took a shot at the superteams created in the modern NBA and how he lost respect to the players who avoided the grind of winning a championship the hard way and instead getting together for an easier road to the NBA Finals and eventually the Larry O'Brien trophy

“The words I hate is this new era. We watched the era before us… and we all competed. Guys are getting real lazy and real cute and then they want guys like me and Big Shot Bob to show them some respect,” the NBA legend shared.

“Trust me, if I knew it was okay to team up after Houston busting my ass in 94, I would have went and played next to Hakeem … I would have went to go play with Tim Duncan and Dave Robinson … But I was like nope. I’m checking my leaks, licking my wounds, and I want to beat these dudes and we did.

“Rob got seven, I got four but whenever we saw something, we hate.”

Shaquille O'Neal makes a great point, though. While star players teaming up to compete for the title is no longer new, it's not as rampant and public as it is today. Due to the player empowerment era, NBA stars also get to choose where they end up with, forcing teams to trade them at the threat of not playing or other antics.

Lakers star LeBron James has been a key figure in the formation of modern NBA superteams, as well as Kevin Durant and James Harden. While LeBron and KD simply exercised their free agency rights, the level of competition certainly changed after they made it okay to form strong teams with other superstars.

Sure enough, Shaq is not cool with that.