Gregg Popovich is one of the most accomplished coaches we’ve seen in the NBA. The legendary Spurs Head Coach is the winningest coach in NBA History. While many find Pop intimidating, the same wasn’t the case for 7ft 1″ Shaquille O’Neal. In fact, towards the end of Shaq’s career, the two had a rapport that allowed them to play jokes on each other. We saw a brilliant example of the same during the Suns-Spurs game in 2008, which left Shaq laughing on the court.
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Shaquille O’Neal was an unstoppable force during his playing days, and every team had to keep multiple backup options to make sure they can put bodies on Shaq. Coach Don Nelson was the one who got creative and found a way to slow down Shaq with his ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ technique. It’s something that bothered Shaq, even though he wouldn’t admit it, and Coach Pop knew it. However, the reason why Pop pulled it here traces back to the 2008 Playoffs.
Coach Pop used Hack-a-Shaq as a comical response to playoff complaints by Shaquille O’Neal
During the 2008 Playoffs, the Spurs and the Suns met in the 1st round. Having a 55-27 record, the Suns went as the 6th seed. The Spurs were the 3rd seed. During the entire series, Gregg Popovich made sure that the Spurs kept using Hack-a-Shaq, something which O’Neal publicly criticized. He had gone as far as to call the strategy cowardly and then said he’d make the Spurs pay for it.
2 weeks after his statement, the Spurs played the Suns during a regular season game, and Coach Pop decided to get funny. Within the first 5 seconds of the game, Shaq was hacked, and we could see the look on his face as he looked toward Coach Pop. Coach Pop gave him the double thumbs up, which made Shaq break into laughter.
While there were a lot of battles between Coach Pop’s Spurs and Shaquille O’Neal, the respect between the two only grew, and it remains till date.
Coach Pop helped Shaq even before he was in the NBA
In 2018, Shaquille O’Neal shared a story of how Gregg Popovich helped him out even before he made it to the NBA. When Pop’s wife passed away in 2018, Shaq revealed on Inside the NBA how Pop helped him out.
“One time me and Pop had a little altercation, and you know my father’s a military man, and he called me right away and said, don’t you ever disrespect Pop again. He told me a story, story goes like this: I was in San Antonio in 1989, couldn’t afford a pair of 18/19 shoes. My father drove over to the Spurs, him and Pop hit it off right away, Pop gave him a couple pairs of shoes, my father brought them back to the house.”
That’s Gregg Popovich for you.
