It seems as if having won multiple NBA titles and league MVP awards wasn’t enough for Shaquille O’Neal. On his Instagram, bringing back his old accolades, the Los Angeles Lakers legend highlighted his 25-year-old stat that he would’ve been the first one to achieve, had it not been for a former sports broadcaster.
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Shaquille O’Neal recently took to his Instagram stories to show the world how close he was to being the first unanimous MVP in NBA history back through the 1999-00 season when he won his first title with the Lakers.
Shaq on IG pic.twitter.com/1QjndIob7j
— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) January 11, 2024
Shaq was only one vote short of being crowned the first unanimous MVP. Unfortunately for The Big Aristotle, former sports broadcaster Fred Hickman had voted for someone else. Four years ago, Shaq even went as far as to slam Hickman during an interview.
Fans could see a fumed O’Neal, cursing Fred Hickman for voting Allen Iverson as the league’s MVP instead of him. During the interview, Shaq said, “Fred idiot Hickman. I hate him. Yeah, I hate him.”
So excited to have @SHAQ on the show with me today, tomorrow and Wednesday. We talked about SO much – here’s Shaq discussing being one vote shy from unanimous MVP. Couldn’t even finish my sentence… pic.twitter.com/4ZufnAviC8
— Kristine Leahy (@KristineLeahy) September 23, 2019
“Wasn’t anybody doing anything close to what I was doing. And I told the world I was gonna do that. And they saw it in my eyes, they saw it in my face, they saw it every time I played. He (Fred Hickman) messed up history. And then a couple of years later, you’re going to give Steph Curry unanimous?”
O’Neal did go on to show love for Stephen Curry during the interview but losing out on the unanimous MVP award still stung Shaq. So much so that he is still bringing it up on Instagram about 25 years later. Shaq did have an exceptional season with 29.7 PPG and 13.7 RPG, dishing out 3.8 APG. However, Hickman gave the edge to Allen Iverson who ended the season with a stat line of 28.4-4.7-3.8.
Shaquille O’Neal isn’t the only one to miss out on being the unanimous MVP
Shaquille O’Neal may have been the first one to lose out on being a Unanimous MVP during his career. But he sure wasn’t the last as LeBron James too had to suffer the same fate as Shaq did during his time in the league.
Back during the 2012-13 MVP voting, LeBron James too missed out on being crowned the first unanimous MVP in NBA history. During James’ time with the Miami Heat, he played at an exceptional level. Unfortunately, LBJ too missed out on being the league’s first unanimous MVP as he lost a vote to a reporter who felt Carmelo Anthony deserved the award instead of LeBron James.
Eventually, the league did get its first unanimous MVP when Stephen Curry took the award home after the 2015-16 NBA season. Curry had a spectacular season with the Warriors that year. That was the start of Curry revolutionizing how the game is played with his long-range shooting. The Chef averaged 30.1 PPG, 6.7 APG, and 5.4 RPG that year while shooting his highest field goal percentage of 50.4%.
No doubt Curry deserved the MVP award but missing out on being the first unanimous MVP, a decade and a half earlier than Steph, still carries a torch in Shaq’s heart.
