After ‘Barely’ Being Able to Dunk on His 50th Birthday, Shaquille O’Neal Looks Back at ‘Monstrous’ Throwdown Against Trailblazers: “That’s Shaq at His Best!”

Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most dominant basketball players we have ever seen in NBA History. The 7ft 1″ big had the ability to toy with his opponents in the paint and get any bucket that he wanted. Boasting a 32-inch vertical, Shaq had given us some of the best in-game dunks we’ve seen. However, later in his career, injuries slowed him down, and stopped him from rising up like he used to. We saw him nearly failing an attempt to dunk near his 50th birthday. I’m guessing maybe after his hip surgery, the big guy must be missing his old ways. At least his Instagram stories say so.

When Shaq was about to turn 50, the TNT crew quickly surveyed other studio members on whether they thought Shaq could dunk. Well, despite some non-believers, Shaq ended up dunking the ball, albeit it was just barely there.

Shaquille O’Neal looks back at his ‘monstrous’ dunk over the Trailblazers

During his tenure with the Lakers, one of the teams that Shaq has a lot of highlight reels against is the Portland Trailblazers. We all remember the iconic Game 7 lob by Kobe Bryant to Shaquille O’Neal in 2000.

However, today Shaq dug up a video that predates this by 2 years. In 1998, Shaq and the Lakers were hosting the Blazers when they trapped one of Shaq’s teammates with a double team. As a bailout, Shaq received the ball near the free-throw line. He ended up taking off from the dotted line and slammed it over Kelvin Cado.

The commentators could be heard saying, “This is Shaq at his best!”  

Surely this would’ve felt nice to the big man, who ended up sharing this on his Instagram stories.

Whenever it comes to majestic dunks and highlight reels of absolute dominance, we can always rely on the Big Diesel.

Retired Shaq was seen dunking on his son Shaqir

Shaq hung up his boots in 2011, having played 19 seasons in the NBA. When he finally retired, people assumed it was because he couldn’t get up like he used to. However, a video from somewhere in the mid-2010s clearly proved the same wrong.

His son Shaqir shared this clip where the big man could be seen rising up and dunking over his son. It’s clear that if the injury bug hadn’t hit Shaq when it did, maybe we could’ve seen him compete and match Kobe with a 5th ring of his own.