“Never Celebrate Too Early”: Shaquille O’Neal Recalls the ‘Most Important’ Lesson Learnt in His NBA Career

Shaquille O’Neal had established himself as a dominant force in the league since his early days with the Orlando Magic, however, he still has a regret. The 7’1″ Big Man was one of the best players in the Magic’s squad since his rookie season and had led the franchise to their first NBA Finals in 1995. However, Shaq takes the blame all on himself for getting swept by Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets in this series.

In an episode of All The Smoke, the Diesel admitted that he and his team had become overconfident after beating Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the Eastern Conference playoffs and celebrating their wins too early. This celebration would later come to bite them back as the Magic seemed to have lost their touch throughout the series. Speaking to hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Shaq regretfully recalled,

“That was my fault, we lost. Because, as a leader, I didn’t lead. After we beat the Bulls, I let up. We beat Mike, we straight. We done playing Houston before. I think it was 1-1, it was an even series. Hakeem gone get 30, I’mma get 27, right? And off the record, we had eight days off. Me and D-Scott were doing stuff we weren’t supposed to be doing. And they had like a little parade and all that, we was just celebrating. So it taught me never celebrate too early.”

Shaquille O’Neal took this loss as an important lesson to carry forward with throughout his career. The Orlando Magic were in literal shambles in this series, having not garnered a single win against Hakeem Olajuwon and Co. However, that loss was enough to put the hunger in Shaq to strive relentlessly to win championships playing in the league.

Twelve years after his retirement, Shaq still holds this incident as a valuable lesson, evidenced by his recent sharing of a clip from this episode on his Instagram story.

This incident from Shaq’s career gives us fans an interesting perspective on experiencing wins and defeats. Perhaps, learning valuable lessons from all of his defeats, the big fella molded both his career and personality in a way to become the legend that we know him as today.

Shaquille O’Neal preferred losing early in the Playoffs than in the Finals

The 1995 Finals loss against the Houston Rockets had fired a new spark in Shaq to pursue relentlessly to win championships. Shaq has played six NBA Finals in his career and won three with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Miami Heat in 2006.

The Diesel had developed a new approach for himself to rather exit early in the Playoffs than come all the way to the Finals and fail to clinch the title. In an episode of The Big Podcast, the Big Aristotle boldly reclaimed, 

“We never wanna lose. But, I’d rather lose in an early Playoff run than to get to the Finals. Like my first Finals, we got swept and that was the hardest summer ever. Like man!…and then the next year you don’t make, you don’t make it, you don’t make it.”

Indeed, the big fella’s approach here explains his winning mentality well. It is much easier for teams to lose early in any stage of competition than to raise their expectations and go on to lose in the final stage. However, Shaq’s example also highlights how one must know the taste of a loss to experience a billion victories later in life.