A rookie Shaquille O’Neal had a lot of big dreams and becoming like Michael Jordan was one of them.
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It was a long journey for Shaquille O’Neal when he first came into the league in 1992 as the first overall pick for Orlando Magic until when he won his first championship in 2000.
Sure, 8-years are not a long time if you consider these guy some in as teenagers or at max 20-22 year-olds to play among men in around their 30s playing the best basketball of their life. But they are enough to humble down a 7-foot-1 insanely athletic giant and teach him some lessons.
And getting into the league when there were prime Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing and many such future legends were trying to create their legacy just added to his misery as well as patience simultaneously.
The young center learned a couple of essential lessons quite early in his career when he faced the Bulls for the first time.
Also read: Michael Jordan spent over $1000 on his biggest fan while surprising him over the phone
Shaquille O’Neal studied Michael Jordan to replace him as The Best
O’Neal was an MJ fan like everyone else before he got his first opportunity to share the floor with the reigning NBA champ who had led his Bulls to back championships just before the season The Diesel came in.
A few years back on ESPN’s NBA Tonight, the 4x NBA champ discussed the first time he encountered Mike on the court, and didn’t want to guard him or get dunked on by him.
Then one way to stop “His Airness” was to foul him hard. And what he proceeded to do next, after he got the future 6x NBA champ on the floor, got him his first valuable lesson from The GOAT.
What Shaq taught himself after getting face to face with Jordan and studying him on the court was as important in his development as the lessons MJ verbally told him.
“I am studying because I want what he has, studyin’ how the refs treat him, studyin’ how he’s talking to his teammates and everybody’s response. I was studying his relationship with him and Phil Jackson, studying how the ponies look at him and fear him, ‘I definitely want that’. He was the best in the game, and I wanted his spot.”
Studying the best in the business did help The Big Aristotle become one of the game’s most dominant players of time if not the most. His study must have also helped him to know coach Jackson as well under whom he and Kobe would three-peat from 2002-03 with the Lakers.
