The 1990s marked a phase of transition in the NBA in a lot of ways. And in terms of great NBA centers, the era marked the passing of the torch from Hakeem Olajuwon to Shaquille O’Neal.
Advertisement
Shaq and The Dream did have a few famous encounters, but their spells of dominance weren’t overlapping for long. So, the constant debate surrounding who was a better player at their peak has been waged across the NBA.
Various schools of thought are prevalent in this dispute, and there are merits to the arguments made by both parties. But what if one of the subjects of the debate comes out and admits their inferiority?
While unexpected, the often less-than-humble Shaquille O’Neal was the one to come out with an admission in this regard. Shaq admitted to “not being as good” as Hakeem Olajuwon and even to being inferior to Robert Parish.
Shaquille O’Neal stated he couldn’t even believe sitting next to Hakeem Olajuwon.
While usually uber-confident, in this instance, Shaq was quick to pay his respects to Hakeem. This, coming from someone who still stakes his past MVP claims, is quite something.
In terms of accomplishments, Shaq did perform comparably to Hakeem. Superman holds the upper hand in the number of championships they secured, too. But still, in terms of ability, O’Neal believes he was far inferior to Olajuwon.
O’Neal even surprisingly compared and placed himself inferior to Robert Parish, someone not spoken in the same bracket as himself or The Dream. The rare moment of humility from the big man.
“It was a very emotional moment for me. Because the guys that are greater than me. I can’t believe that I’m sitting next to him. You wanna look at myself play? I was not as good as Hakeem. I wasn’t even as good as Chief” remarked Shaq on TNT.
One might call this a case of age meeting wisdom. After all, this was the same O’Neal who once challenged Hakeem to a one-on-one for a $1,00,000 reward.
Young Shaq seemed to believe he was better than Hakeem Olajuwon.
After getting outplayed by Olajuwon’s Rockets in the 1995 NBA Finals, a young Shaq was livid. The Big Diesel called out Olajuwon for being good with his team and not really dominating O’Neal as opposed to public perception.
It was then that Superman felt it was wise to challenge The Dream. Olajuwon wasn’t one to shy away from a challenge either. The Rockets superstar accepted Shaq’s challenge, and “War on the Floor” seemed to be a reality.
However, the event eventually did not take place as scheduled. An injury prevented Hakeem from taking the floor and the grand occasion was eventually canceled. If O’Neal won that, there probably wouldn’t have been a heartfelt admission of inferiority akin to what we witnessed.
