Four-time NBA champion – Shaquille O’Neal is currently in Orlando and will be honored as the first player to have his jersey retired by the franchise. While in attendance, the player decided to join a special broadcast with his TNT crew that had Stan Van Gundy and Kevin Harlan. During the broadcast, the announcers asked Shaq about the number of rims he has broken going back to his school days. The Hall of Famer nonchalantly answered, “About 27!”
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The 7ft 1″ center was a beast on the basketball court, and anyone who has played against him can attest to the fact. He is widely considered the most dominant player in the NBA’s history. We have seen quite a bit of footage of Shaq breaking rims and backboards, but twenty-seven is plain ridiculous. Even the announcers were shocked by his response. Here is a video on the social media platform ‘X’ capturing the conversation:
.@SHAQ confirms that he’s broken 27 rims throughout his career pic.twitter.com/MbAt7sXfEd
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) February 14, 2024
While responding to the commentator’s shock, Shaq said, “Yes! Yes! In the military base in San Antonio, Texas, I was banned from the gym.” It’s hard not to relate to the TNT broadcasters’ response, as twenty-seven seems like far too many. However, if anyone in the world can do it, it’s none other than Shaquille O’Neal. The player was an unstoppable force of nature, and his game depended on bullying his way to the rim.
Shaquille O’Neal’s ‘Broken Rim Tree’
In 2017, the big man took to Instagram to share a photograph of a piece of art that had basketball rims hanging from their branches. Shaq posed in front of the sculpture and captioned the photo – “These are all the backboards I have broken this is the ‘BROKEN RIM TREE.'” Considering his claim of having broken 27 rims, he might as well make an art to remember those moments. Here is the post by Shaq on Instagram:
View this post on Instagram
As much as Shaq would like to claim the sculpture to be his piece of work, the sculpture was made by the artist – ‘Alexandre Arrechea’. The artist’s sculpture is famously known as the ‘Orange Tree’. It is a large-scale sculpture of a metal tree sprouting basketball hoops and surrounded by basketballs. The sculpture was designed to promote awareness of health issues and showcase the exploration of the relationship between sports and urban street culture.
