Shaquille O’Neal has weighed in on the Kelsey Mitchell situation — and his advice is simple: stop worrying about the extra scrutiny that comes with playing next to Caitlin Clark and start profiting from it.
Mitchell, a four-time All-Star who averaged a career-high 24.7 points per game this season for the Indiana Fever, drew attention at the team’s end-of-season press conference Saturday when she spoke candidly about the downsides of playing alongside Clark — describing the criticism she and her teammates receive as a side effect of the attention Clark commands. With Mitchell entering free agency in late January, the comments triggered speculation about whether she might leave a franchise where she has spent her entire nine-year career.
O’Neal, speaking to OutKick, addressed Mitchell’s remarks directly without crossing what he called “the athlete code.” He drew on his own experience playing alongside superstars in both big and small markets — most notably Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles — to frame his response.
“My advice is to take advantage of all the eyes that are there. If the eyes are on one person and you’re next to that person, take advantage of them,” O’Neal said. He added that he wished Mitchell well before delivering the clearest piece of advice in the interview: “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.”
Building a Brand Beyond the Game
The conversation also broadened into O’Neal’s wider philosophy on athlete branding — a subject on which he has few peers. He described surrounding himself early in his career with people who were smarter than him, including longtime brand manager Leonard Armato, and credited that foundation for a commercial legacy that has outlasted his playing days.
“Fifty-two percent of all professional athletes go down and have nothing,” O’Neal said. “So we maximised my potential. You know, learned a lot, did a lot, dreamed a lot, created a lot.”
Armato told OutKick that the key to long-term athlete branding is combining self-promotion with sound business decisions — and that in the social media era, athletes can effectively function as their own media companies. He described O’Neal as a pioneer in that space, the first major athlete to fully embrace social media as a brand-building tool.
For O’Neal, the non-negotiable at the centre of all of it is authenticity. He recalled an early meeting with an image consulting firm that tried to reposition his public persona, only to be stopped by Armato. “Image is reality,” Armato told the consultant. “You have to stay true to yourself.”
“A lot of people form characters they can’t live up to,” O’Neal said. “For me, my image is all about fun. I would love to be known as the ambassador of fun.” He acknowledged making mistakes throughout his career but said the response to failure was always the same: identify what went wrong, learn from it, and rebuild on core values. “If you follow certain core values, build relationships, stay true to yourself, learn from your failures, and do things the right way consistently, you could create a brand that will be known well beyond your years of playing.”
Armato’s book on athlete brand management, titled MAXIMIZE, is due out in November. O’Neal wrote the foreword.
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