Former Phoenix Suns star, Grant Hill was a guest on “Reiter’s Block” on CBS Sports HQ and received a call-in question from none other than Shaquille O’Neal himself. When Shaq asked Grant about the infamous tussling match with Croatian guard Gordan Giricek, he told everything.
According to Grant, “Shaquille O’Neal choked out Gordan Giricek before a game,” he told host Bill Reiter. “He put him in a sleeper hold and the guy was knocked out, passed out on the locker room floor before the game. Definitely one of Shaq’s memorable — or not-so-memorable — moments from the year and a half that I played with him with the Phoenix Suns.”
Hill then explains why and how the altercation happened. “You know, Giricek was a good player from Croatia, a good shooter, but he never passed the ball inside,” he said. “He would always kind of look Shaq off and shoot it. And they kind of would go back and forth and exchange words and Giricek would kind of talk trash to Shaq. And so one day Shaq was like, ‘You know what, I’mma let this guy know who I am.’ “It was right before a big game in Phoenix against Dallas. We have our team meeting. The meeting ends, I go and use the restroom. I come out and Giricek’s laid out on the floor. And I’m like, ‘Come on Shaq! We’re trying to win!’ But it was typical Shaq. Thankfully, Giricek, nothing serious happened. Thankfully he’s living to be able to talk about it. But Shaq was always entertaining and always knocking people out, I suppose.”
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Shaq was making folks put respect on his name before Birdman said it!
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