Shaq is about to turn 50 in a couple of hours. We take a look back at how his opponents from his heyday look back at his playing style.
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There hasn’t ever been a single player more dominant at his position that Shaq at the center role. Standing 7’1″ tall, O’Neal was already a physical specimen when drafted to the NBA in 1992.
Just about 300 pounds at the time, Shaq ran the break and handled the ball in a fashion that had everybody scurrying to their archives to find an appropriate comparison. Many people could only come back with a singular name in the same league – Wilt Chamberlain.
And while Wilt Chamberlain was undoubtedly an absolute unit on his own, there is no way he could’ve stopped a peak Shaq weighing 395 pounds in the 2002 NBA Finals.
Most Dominant Ever is a nickname that couldn’t be any more appropriate for Shaq than anything else. MDE is the personfication of what he did on the court at the most basic level. He DOMINATED. And his opponents felt his full force when they tried to stop him from DOMINATING.
Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles interviewed Shaq and praised him a couple of years back
In addition to being an extremely efficient and skilled basketball player, Shaq is a gem of a human being. Lucille O’Neal did not raise her son Shaquille to look away from the talents and efforts of the people around him.
Quentin Richardson played at the tweener position for quite a long career in the NBA. He made his debut in the league for the Clippers alongside Darius Miles, representing Jordan Brand.
Q-Rich did so at a time when it was quite uncommon for rookies to have sneaker deals. But even he admits that Shaq and his aura were on an altogether different planet:
“For me, for real, you was back then like Thanos is now. Like, you were what you were supposed to be when you saw this big, massive-physiqued, chiselled, action figure.”
“But then also, once you got the ball, we felt you! I remember the first we played you, I saw you in the weight room and I was like ‘GOD DAMN!'”
