Shaquille O’Neal has had the privilege of working with two of the greatest coaches of all time — Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. However, Shaq has a clear favorite, and finds one to be better than the other. The big fella found Riley’s motivational speeches to be “BS” while he diligently followed Jackson’s advice even after leaving the Los Angeles Lakers.
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In his memoir, Shaq Uncut: My Story, O’Neal revealed that during the Miami Heat training sessions, head coach Riley would give pep talks to the team. While every other player on the roster listened on, enthralled, he simply couldn’t bring himself to focus on the words. Shaq called Riley’s speeches boring and claimed they didn’t motivate him because he had learned everything he ever needed from Jackson while in LA.
“Pat gave a lot of motivational speeches. After a while, when he launched into one of them, my eyes kind of glazed over, to be honest. I can’t tell you one speech he ever gave, because I knew it was all BS. I knew what I had to do as a player because I had already been given the blueprint by the great Phil Jackson,” O’Neal wrote.
By the time Jackson began working with O’Neal and the Lakers, he already had won eight titles — two as a player and six as a coach with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. Shaq realized soon enough that he would never get a better coach than the Zen Master, and made sure he absorbed everything that Jackson taught him.
The respect ran so deep that the big fella didn’t mind Jackson calling him names.
Jackson used to call Shaq “fat boy”
Under Jackson’s tutelage, Shaq and the Lakers won three titles in a row, from 2000 to 2002. O’Neal won three Finals MVPs and was also the league’s MVP in 1999.
Shaq’s respect for Jackson knew no bounds. The coach, in order to motivate his best player, would call him all sorts of names, O’Neal revealed in his memoir.
Jackson would call him a “fat boy” and Shaq would use the words to push himself harder. Only Jackson had the right to call him that, as he knew that the coach cared for him.
“Phil had fun taking his digs at me. I didn’t mind, because I knew he cared about me and he did it to motivate me. The two of us would get into it once in a while. He’d say, ‘Get over there sooner.’ I’d say, ‘I’m trying, man.’ He’d come back with, ‘Well try harder, fat boy.’ He called me that all the time. I’d get 39 points and he’d say, ‘That’s all you could come up with, fat boy?’ Anyone else says that and I’m punching him in the face. But Phil had earned my respect.”
Shaq has credited Jackson on multiple occasions for pushing him toward attaining greatness as a player. And the coach’s words of wisdom, well, they still ring in the superstar’s ears.
