Shaquille O’Neal Expands Upon the ‘Derrick Coleman’ Inspiration Behind Him Breaking the Backboard in 1993

Shaquille O’Neal was notorious for unleashing power jams that led to decimated rims and splintered backboards. While Shaq loved dishing these blows to his opponents, he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of it. In March of 1993, former New Jersey Nets power forward Derrick Coleman came up with a big-time dunk on rookie Shaq and then added insult to injury by giving him a finger wag. A few weeks later, the 7’1” Orlando Magic Center retaliated by bringing down the whole backboard against Coleman’s Nets.

On his Big Podcast, Shaq explained how Coleman’s dunk over him was a rarity and warranted revenge. For Shaq, there is a difference between getting “dunked on” and “dunked by”. The big fella claimed that if someone comes in chest-to-chest contact with the defender who finishes the jam over them, they have been dunked on.

On the other hand, if someone finishes a jam from behind and/or doesn’t make a lot of body contact, then it qualifies as a “dunking by”. Shaq then revealed that he was “dunked on” just twice in his hoops career, including his high school and college days. 

Apart from Coleman, only Michael Jordan had managed to posterize the Diesel. Therefore, when he faced such humiliation in his first year itself, he was bent on squaring things against Coleman. During a home game in Meadowlands Arena, Coleman went to his left, took a couple of dribbles and then followed it with a drop-step to create the hop required to dunk on Shaq.

The PF used his off-hand to fend away O’Neal and managed to stuff the ball over his head. The finger wag that followed fueled Shaq with a desire to avenge the embarrassment. A month later, he would exact revenge in the most poetic manner as his forceful dunk brought the backboard to the floor in the same arena, which led to a 30-minute delay.  

“So Derick Coleman went left. He went up like he was gonna shoot a jump hook and turned his wrist over but he did this [finger wag]. Now I am mad. So next we played Jersey, I took the backboard down… Never been dunked on in high school, never been dunked on in college.” 

Before this, Shaq had also dissected the Coleman dunk in a July 2023 appearance on Graham Bensinger’s show. He explained that the poster dunk embarrassed him so much because it happened in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey. His parents were watching Coleman give him a finger wag, which left him in a rough emotional state. 

“I didn’t really know he dunked it until I came down and the ball hit me, you know what I turned around to him, he did like me that [finger wag]. I looked up to my mom and dad, I went to the bench, I had a little tear in my eye.”

But soon after, he’d have his revenge in the same arena. It shows that Shaquille O’Neal wasn’t someone who tolerated disrespect. He knew how to get back at his opponents through his overwhelming size advantage.