Shaquille O’Neal boasts an impressive NBA career, ordained with every single accolade that the league offered at the time. However, one award still causes him pain. Shaq won the 2000 MVP with an overwhelming majority of votes. But he was never fully satisfied with the feat because he missed out on the voting process being unanimous because of a single vote. If it weren’t for one member of the media, Shaquille O’Neal would have been the NBA’s first unanimous league MVP, long before Stephen Curry did it in 2016.
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Things soon got ugly after CNN broadcaster Fred Hickman, the only person who didn’t vote for Shaq that year, got his name leaked. Subsequently, he started receiving threats for his controversial decision.
Jeff Pearlman in his book ‘Three-Ring Circus‘, detailed the story from Fred Hickman’s perspective. 2000 was a year of many firsts for Shaq. He won his first MVP title, and also managed to bag his first Finals MVP and Championship titles. That season Shaq averaged 29.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, and 3.8 assists while shooting 57.4% from the field in 79 games.
Besides, the Los Angeles Lakers had the best record in the NBA, acres ahead in the standings compared to the Allen Iverson-led Philadelphia 76ers. Therefore, Shaq’s MVP bid was pretty much a no brainer. No player in the NBA had been a unanimous MVP at that point, and Shaq was very close to that dream. When the final verdict came out, it turned out that Shaq had received 120 of 121 votes. The only person to not vote for him was Hickman, who thought that Allen Iverson had a better season than the Lakers’ big man.
Hickman later revealed what it was like for him to be in Shaq’s crosshairs and all the things he had to go through because of it. As per Pearlman’s book, Hickman said, “To this day I don’t know how my name got out, because the vote was supposed to be anonymous. I was Steve Bartman before Steve Bartman. That reaction was really intense. Really angry. I was getting threats, which was a first for me. Threats? All because I thought Iverson was more important to his team than Shaq was to his.”
It’s been over two decades since Shaq was snubbed but he is still not over the fact that Hickman’s decision kept him from making history that year.
Shaquille O’Neal is still hurt by Hickman’s snub
There are only two players who have missed out on the bragging rights by one vote. Shaq in 2000 and LeBron James in the 2012-13 season. Kevin Garnett also came very close to owning this record back in 2004 when he got 120 out of 123 votes. It was only in 2016 that the league had its first-ever unanimous MVP. The Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry was awarded this honor when he averaged 30.1 points, 6.7 assists, and 5.4 rebounds while shooting 50.4% from the field in 79 games. The Warriors had a record 73-9 wins that season.
In a 2019 interview, Shaq let out his frustration yet again, going at Hickman. He said, “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?” Although he wasn’t throwing shade at Steph as he appreciated his greatness that season, Shaq’s reaction showed just how much he cared about the missed unanimous MVP opportunity.
