Shaquille O’Neal has gained the reputation of a habitual liar over the years. In some instances, Shaq uses that habit to motivate himself, while in others, he just lies for the fun of it. Amin Elhassan once recalled how Shaq tried to fool players into believing that he was abducted by his date. Labeling the big man a “magnificent liar”, Elhassan said that almost everyone bought into Shaq’s story and actually believed that the 7’1″ giant was in trouble.
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In a YouTube short uploaded by ‘thekickclub‘, the sports commentator said that Shaq often likes to test his audience with his lies only to see how far he can take them on a made-up journey. He said, “We’re at Palm Springs. We have a breakfast meeting the day before our pre-season game.” Elhassan said that Shaq came in for the meeting very late and was sweating a lot. When asked if everything was alright, the big fella made up an elaborate lie on the spot, making everyone believe that his life was in danger.
He said, “I went to LA last night. I went to meet up with this girl and we went to dinner and then we were like, you know what, let’s just take it to go back. She’s driving me back and then she started acting crazy.”
Shaq told the rookies on the team that he immediately asked the woman to drop him off as it was getting a little too scary for him. And instead of obliging to his request, the woman refused to let him go. Elhassan, who was sure that none of this happened, asked Shaq how he got out of that situation.
Shaq told him, “I pulled out the silverware. The knife from the to go box and said, ‘Yo, I’ll stab you if you don’t let me out’.” When Elhassan called him out, Shaq acknowledged that it was all a lie except for the fact that he actually went to LA. While in this instance, Shaq lied to his team for the fun of it, he also used a similar technique to motivate himself for games.
Shaquille O’Neal made up an imaginary feud against David Robinson
It takes a maniacal approach to reach the absolute top in one’s domain. For someone like Shaq, even though there was no lack of motivation for him to play the game, he once made up a beef inside his mind to push himself against David Robinson. The story that the big fella peddled initially was that Robinson turned him down when a young Shaq approached him for an autograph.
Shaq said, “I looked up to him when I was at Cole High in San Antonio, and he was just starting out with the Spurs. I was a player-of-the-year for my high school. He was player-of-the-year for the Spurs. One time I asked him for an autograph. He wrote his name real quick and was like, “Yeah, come on, hurry up.” He kind of dogged me out.” The fake rumor stayed in the world for a long time till Shaq apologized to Robinson during a 90’s reunion session.
