Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith have a long history. And while NBA fans know that they’ve been working together on Inside the NBA for close to 15 years, their tryst with each other goes much further back in time. The two had met in the 1995 Finals, when Smith’s Rockets won over Shaq’s Magic in a sweep.
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Watching Shaq and Kenny together now, it seems like they’ve been friends their whole lives. Their banter, along with Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, has made Inside the NBA arguably the best and most entertaining sports show in history.
What most people might not realize, though, is that they didn’t get close until after their playing careers were over. That, of course, didn’t stop Shaq from picking up Kenny’s son, KJ Smith, from school once without his knowledge.
Yes, you read that right. Shaq once kidnapped his future colleague’s kid. During a recent interview on YouTube’s BigBoyTV, Kenny told the story of how it all went down.
“Shaq kidnapped my son once,” said Kenny. “We’re in Houston, Texas. This is the ’90s. So his daughter and my son went to the same preschool. He’s six. I don’t know Shaq that well. We played against each other. I don’t know him. I don’t have his cell phone number.”
Kenny explained that Shaq’s baby mama lived around the corner from him. She and Kenny’s wife were acquaintances. But since Shaq was in Orlando most of the time, he wasn’t around that much. That’s why Kenny was surprised when he went to pick his son up one day, and he was told that Shaq had already gotten him.
“I come in, and I’m like, ‘Hey, where’s KJ?'” he remembered. “‘Oh, Shaquille picked him up.’ I’m like, ‘Shaquille?’ I’m not even thinking that ‘Shaquille’ is Shaq. So they go, ‘Shaq.’ I’m like, ‘You gave my son to Shaq?!'”
Imagine how difficult it would be to process that your son is no longer at school because he got picked up by somebody who is basically a stranger. And that stranger also happens to be the most dominant big man in the NBA. Kenny was in disbelief, but he also had to figure out the logistics of finding them, which wasn’t easy because, as he mentioned before, he didn’t even have Shaq’s number.
It took a little bit of effort. Kenny called his wife, who then got Shaq’s number from her friend down the street. Kenny called him up to see what in the world was happening, only to find out that his son was having the time of his life.
“I’m like, ‘Shaq, where are you?’ I said, ‘You got my son.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I was picking up my daughter, and he was like, ‘Hey, can I go with y’all?’ And I said, yeah.” When Kenny asked where they were, Shaq said they were shopping at the mall.
At that point, you probably just have to trust that Shaq will take better care of your kid than the various backboards he shattered throughout his career. And so Kenny told him to meet up at the school when they were done. There was one more surprise in store for him, though.
“He brings him back, he got a haircut,” Kenny said, still in disbelief all these years later. “He gave my son a haircut. Not just the mall, they got a haircut. He’s got a part in his head. I’m like, ‘Yoooo, what?!'”
Kenny’s son, of course, was as happy as any kid can be. He came in with bags filled with sneakers and swag from the mall. He even happily said goodbye to “Uncle Shaq” once it was time to go.
Nowadays, security protocols at schools are so strict that you would think nobody would be able to just pick up someone else’s kid. If someone could pull it off, though, it would probably be Shaq. Would you tell him no?
