Back in 1992, the Orlando Magic selected Shaquille O’Neal as the No.1 overall pick, just ahead of Alonzo Mourning and Christian Laettner. At 7 ft 1 in, 325 pounds, the legendary big man went on to become a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest, tallest and heaviest men to ever play in the league.
However, Shaq’s longstanding career was not without incident. In fact, O’Neal never backed down from an on-court altercation. From Dennis Rodman, Brad Miller and Greg Foster, to Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, and Charles Barkley, O’Neal never cared about the consequences.
“I don’t care because to me it was like techs,” O’Neal said when asked about the craziest fine he ever received for his on-court shenanigans. “If I had to put these paws on you, I was gon’ do it. I’m not the type of guy to say, ‘Oh I ain’t gon’ punch him in the face cause it’ll cost me 50. F*ck that 50, I’m knocking yo’ ass out.”
Shaq also shared his opinion on the idea of Super Teams. Although he believes players should want to win and beat the best, instead of joining, he’s not interested in bashing the new generation of players.
“It can’t be a double standard,” he told Baller Alert. “They’re saying that Lebron was here, D. Wade was here, Bosh was here, they got somewhere and they formed a team in Miami, right? And then KD lose to a team and joins a team, people get mad.”
“I think there’s so much pressure on these kids to win, everybody wants to win so you take the hard, but easy route. I’m from the old school. I don’t wanna play with Mike. I wanna beat Mike, I wanna beat Charles,” he continued. “But at the end of the day, when you look at a players name, you want to see how many rings you got. So it don’t matter how you get ‘em, as long as you got ‘em.”
To be clear though, if O’Neal passed up on his basketball opportunity, he says he would still be a legend in another industry: Music, hip-hop to be exact.
“If I wasn’t a ballplayer, I’d be a hip-hop legend. Promise you that,” he said.
Shout out to Shaq Diesel!
Click the picture below to watch the full interview:
Check out some of Shaq’s most epic fights below:
