Shaquille O’Neal’s dominance on NBA hardwood is directly proportional to the hilarity of his hijinks off of it. He knew his 7’1 and over 300 lbs frame led to him being an unstoppable force on the floor. So, he didn’t see any point in abiding by Pat Riley’s strict weight and body fat requirements. In order to avoid all the hoopla around his physique, he resorted to a fair share of ‘shenanigans’ to say the least.
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Shaq, just like every other player under the Riley administration, needed to go through regular weigh-ins and body fat checks. However, he was far from the required ceiling. Failing those tests would result in fines, limited playing time, extra work on physique, and in case of repeated failures, trade. So, the big fella used to get creative to avoid being penalized.
Shaq’s go-to and now famous method used to be covering himself with baby oil before the tests. It was done in the hope of slipping under the body fat limit or at the least, giving an illusion of intense sweating from workouts. His former teammate Antoine Walker was recently on Run It Back where he shed more light on Shaq’s trick.
Walker said, “I was a part of it, got suspended once for it [not being in shape]. Pat’s tough on conditioning.” When asked who came up with the baby oil idea and if it worked in shedding some weight temporarily, Walker said, “I wish I could tell you. I don’t know.” Although there’s no clarity on who started it, Walker claimed that it worked.
Shaq had to do what he had to do to make sure he could suit up for Pat Riley’s Miami Heat🤣 pic.twitter.com/FtDxTb8nbL
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) March 16, 2025
When the tests were done on players like Shaq, nothing would stick to his body due to the baby oil. Walker stated that Shaq must’ve known that he wouldn’t make the cut otherwise, resulting in such desperate measures at the last minute.
A measure of such drastic magnitude from the ‘Big Aristotle’ is to be expected. This is coming from perhaps the foremost locker room prankster the league has ever seen so imagining O’Neal running around with bottles of baby oil to avoid body fat checks isn’t hard in the slightest.
Shaquille O’Neal and Pat Riley used to butt heads over his poor conditioning
By the 2007-08 season, Shaq wasn’t the dominant athlete he used to be. He was slower, and injury prone and was a headache for Riley due to his stubborn attitude towards fitness. His consistent failures in meeting Riley’s requirements started a feud between the two. As the Heat continued to struggle, the tension escalated.
This led to them almost getting into a fight once. They had to be separated by the players, but the damage was done. It was clear that Shaq’s time in Miami had come to an end. The big fella, who was already entering the last leg of his career, was traded to Phoenix.
After joining the Suns in 2008, Shaq became a one-season player for two more franchises. In 2011, he retired from the league while playing for the Boston Celtics due to a career-ending Achilles injury that analysts at the time believe could’ve been avoided if he was in better shape.
