Making an appearance on the Gil’s Arena podcast, Baron Davis revealed a hilarious moment that he shared with Shaquille O’Neal. While both superstars played for UCLA in their college days, Davis tried dunking on Shaq. Even though the incident could’ve resulted in Davis getting his legs broken by Shaq, the 2x All star seemed to get a good laugh.
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Baron Davis was one of the most electric dunkers during his playing days. Across his 13-year illustrious career, B-Diddy has compiled one of the most entertaining highlights reels with multiple dunks featuring on the same. During the off-season while at UCLA, Davis wanted to put his jumping abilities to the test by dunking the ball over Shaquille O’Neal.
Despite missing the dunk, Shaq wasn’t thrilled with the actions that the 6ft 3” guard tried pulling off. The Big Aristotle always took pride in the fact that he was rarely dunked on across his entire nearly two-decade-long career. Hence, the Los Angeles Lakers legend wasn’t joking when he threatened to break Davis’ legs if he made another attempt to do so.
“I tried to dunk on Shaq. He said ‘Bro, if you ever do that again, I’m gonna break your f**king legs’. At UCLA, I was like ‘Alright, cool, bro’. I thought I had a chance, I missed. That sh*t bounced off the rim… If he swing and miss and accidentally hit me, dog, I’m out,” Baron Davis narrated.
Throughout his career, Shaq has had several altercations with numerous players. The big man never misses any chance to lock horns with his opponents. Weighing more than 350 pounds and standing at 7 feet, Davis was correct that O’Neal was capable of knocking him out. The two-time All-Star did the smart thing by not repeating his actions.
There have been instances when a few individuals gathered the courage and decided to dunk on Shaq outside the NBA hardwood. Nate Robinson has managed to dunk on “Superman” not just once, but twice – at the Boston Celtics’ practice and at the shooting of the movie “Uncle Drew”.
Shareef O’Neal has also managed to leap over his father for a few emphatic dunks. However, as seen in the embed below, the father-son duo seemed to be training and it is evident that Shaq was getting dunked on by Shareef on purpose.
Shaquille O’Neal claims to have been dunked on only thrice in his career
With Shaquille O’Neal’s physical stature, it is quite intimidating for players to finish at the rim. For almost 20 years, the four-time champ earned his bread and butter living and thriving in the paint. Not just offensively, but defensively as well, Shaq was a monster at the post. However, three people managed to get the better of the former LSU Tiger and dunk on him – Derrick Coleman, Michael Jordan, and Tim Perry.
Being on the receiving end of a poster only thrice across 1,400+ professional games is an incredible feat. As he rightly should, the Diesel is immensely proud of himself for the same.
“I always take pride in saying 20 years, only got dunked on three times – Derrick Coleman, Michael Jordan, and Tim Perry… I always wanted to take pride in not getting dunked on,” Shaq claimed.
With 3,200 dunks across his career, Shaq has caught multiple players in a poster and has even shattered the backboard on numerous occasions. Justifying himself with several other facts, Shaq is not far off from his opinion regarding him being the most dominant player in NBA history.
