Shaquille O’Neal’s sons Shareef and Shaqir O’Neal have established themselves as budding basketball players on the national scene and are expected to grace the NBA one day like their legendary father. While Shareef plays for the NBA G League Ignite, the 20-year-old Shaqir O’Neal currently plays for the Texas Southern Tigers. Both brothers receive comprehensive media attention due to their father’s massive popularity. On the other hand, they are often subjected to harsh criticism from a section of fans as well. For instance, Shareef and Shaqir would often have to listen to taunts when they miss free throws because their father was terrible from the foul line during his playing days. However, Shaq would be quick to respond to the hecklers too on such occasions, just like this resurfaced story shows.
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Shareef had posted a hilarious story on his Instagram related to this regular phenomenon, claiming that the crowd would often say “Just like Ya daddy” whenever he or Shaqir missed free throws during their stint with Crossroads high school in Santa Monica, California. In response, O’Neal once wrote a snappy response, dubbing himself the “best ever” to do it. The post was recently resurfaced by SportsCenter on Instagram, and also featured the reaction of LeBron James to the whole fiasco.
Shaquille O’Neal had a hilarious response for his sons’ hecklers
Considering the limited ability Shaquille O’Neal showed from the free throw line, he was often ridiculed during his playing days for missing free throws. O’Neal had an overall efficiency of slightly over 52% when it came to free throws. As a result, teams would even resort to fouling Shaq as a ploy to send him to the foul line and contain his dominance. A method popularly known as ‘Hack-a-Shaq’.
As a matter of fact, the best-ever free throw percentage that Shaq had ever registered was slightly less than 60%. This happened in the 2008-09 season when he was playing for the Phoenix Suns.
Shaq was so poor with his free throws that even his sons have to bear the brunt of the ridicule whenever they end up missing some. However, O’Neal had a simple response to his son’s post about the hecklers’ comments:
“And tell em you daddy the best to ever do it, but then again u ain’t gotta say nothing. THEY ALREADY KNOW.”
Shareef’s hilarious post also prompted a reaction from LeBron James. Shaq’s response seemed to crack LeBron up, who posted a series of laughing emojis.
Phillip Harrison would scold Shaq for missing free throws as a kid
Shaq once revealed that his father, former sergeant Phillip Harrison, would often scold him when he missed free throws as a kid. The situation was such that Harrison would not be happy even if Shaq had a dominant game overall, but missed free throws.
Shaq claimed that while others praised him constantly, his father always found something he could be better at. Speaking on the Pat McAfee show, O’Neal revealed the following:
“Growing up in a drill sergeant environment, my dad wasn’t satisfied with a good amount. We had to be damn near perfect. So whenever I scored 30 points, somebody would say ‘He had a dominant game’. He would say, ‘No, he missed 12 free throws, you should’ve had 42 points.’”
Seems like Shaq would have fared much better in his NBA career if he had taken his father’s advice seriously during his playing days. It is honestly scary to think how good Shaq could have been if he regularly made his free throws.
