Shaquille O’Neal made his $400 million fortune and legendary NBA career by eating alive elite defenders like Dikembe Mutombo for breakfast

Apart from Shaquille O’Neal, nobody in the history of the game could say they have dominated both David Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo in their primes.

There are no questions about Shaq’s unanswerable dominance, who played 19 years at the greatest basketball stages of all. No player out in that period could keep themselves from being intimidated by the 15x All-Star.

The 7ft 1” LSU star came into the league in 1992 when it was filled with defensive nightmares. Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Dikembe Mutombo to name a few of the matchups that the 20-year-old O’Neal was going to face.

All three of those guys are the all-time great defensive big men who stopped almost everyone who came at their rim. They have a combined 10,000+ blocks to their name, but even then, The Big Aristotle was not one of those big men that those monsters of the paint could bully around.

Also read: Luka Doncic, Stephen Curry, and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the only ‘Untouchable’ players in the league according to Larry Nance Jr.

 

Shaquille O’Neal annihilated Dikembe Mutombo in the 2001 NBA Finals

The Big Diesel was built differently. With 340 pounds of muscle at that height, he used to empty floors while running towards the basket and made his opponents touch earth while he was at it.

The then reigning NBA champ and Finals MVP didn’t even spare Mutombo, the #2 shot blocker of all time when two of the greatest Centers were going head-to-head against each other in the 2001 NBA Finals.

Yes, the very Finals series which is much more famous for Allen Iverson stepping over Lakers’ Ty Lue than even the Purple and Gold lifting their second title of the three-peat. Have a look at Shaq’s annihilation of Mutombo.

The 7ft 2’ stopper could only stop O’Neal to an average of 33 points and 15 rebounds in the series and win his second of the three straight Finals MVPs. Dominance at its best.

Also read: “If Kyrie Irving was 6ft 6”: Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy compares Nets guard to Kobe Bryant