Shaquille O’Neal Reminisces About ‘The Greatest Game Never Played’ Involving LeBron James and Jay-Z

Shaquille O’Neal Reminisces About ‘The Greatest Game Never Played’ Involving LeBron James and Jay-Z

Shaquille O’Neal played in every big game he possibly could during his career. He featured in six NBA Finals and starred in four Game 7s in the playoffs. He also played in the gold medal match in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics albeit for only five minutes. However, there’s one contest that he was scheduled to participate in but couldn’t due to a blackout.

The game had no trophies, medals, or accolades on the line. Instead, it was to settle a raging beef between rappers Jay-Z and Fat Joe. The contest, named the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic, was scheduled to take place at New York’s famous Rucker Pack and featured two star-studded teams picked by the artists themselves to represent them.

Jay-Z summoned Shaq, LeBron James, Jamal Crawford, Lamar Odom and Sebastian Telfair. Fat Joe picked Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, Yao Ming, Jermaine O’Neal, and Stephon Marbury. The game, scheduled for August 14th, 2003, was set to be the greatest pickup game ever played.

But it was ruled out because of an unfortunate city-wide blackout.

O’Neal seemingly still ponders about how it would’ve played out. The Lakers icon shared a post about it on his Instagram stories in what would’ve been its 21st anniversary week.

On that fateful evening, the players, fans, and rappers arrived at Rucker Park, but the game couldn’t get underway as the city was experiencing its biggest blackout since 1977. Given the hype and excitement about the event, Jay-Z didn’t want the event to be canceled.

He came up with a radical solution on the fly. The rapper suggested that cars should lineup around the court with headlines on so there’s enough visibility to play the game. They went to NYPD with their proposal but were turned away and the contest was postponed.

The game was never played after that night and went down in basketball folklore as the ‘The Greatest Game Never Played.’ O’Neal seemingly wishes it did, but there’s nothing he can do except wonder how it’d have gone.

Post Edited By: Satagni Sikder
Shaquille O'Neal

About the author

Avatar photo

Jay Mahesh Lokegaonkar

Jay Lokegaonkar is a basketball journalist who has been following the sports as a fan 2005. He has worked in a slew of roles covering the NBA, including writer, editor, content manager, social media manager, and head of content since 2018. However, his primary passion is writing about the NBA. Especially throwback stories about the league's iconic players and franchises. Revisiting incredible tales and bringing scarcely believable stories to readers are one his main interests as a writer.

Don’t miss these