Shaquille O’Neal, the $400 million Lakers legend snitched on gangsters of LA who were once his friends

Arun Sharma | 23/07/2022
"Shaquille O'Neal becoming a sheriff after snitching on his mates? That's tough!": Twitter is in disbelief after finding out the ex-Lakers Big man was good friends with gang members

Shaquille O’Neal is known to people as the gentle giant – but during his playing days, he was a completely different person.

To the kids of today, and people with short-term memory, Shaquille O’Neal cannot be seen as anything other than the guy paying off other people’s bills. He’s made a huge fan following for himself, and his past seems to be forgiven.

Originally a bad boy, despite having a strict father, Shaq had connections in all the wrong places. Associated with the “Crips” of LA, the blue and the red side are in a perennial feud with each other. Shaq chose the closest color to purple and rode with them.

There are allegations that he even pointed out to his members about the easy targets, and got a few of his peer’s houses robbed. That is such a low blow, given he knew most of them came from little to no means.

The best part about this association? O’Neal took to the stands and testified against the same members, making sure all of them were behind bars. He had bars for his rap and got his homies behind bars. He hoped they dropped their bars (of soap) that cannot be confirmed.

Also Read: 7-footer Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t remember All-Star Pascal Siakam’s name on live, national television

Shaquille O’Neal was in some deep stuff with the gangs of LA – he had a few huge allegations on him too

His time with LA was not all championships and good chemistry with Kobe Bryant. He lived a life outside of the court, and that was murky. It got so bad, that it looked like Shaq got his friends in the Crips to hunt down a man who held some intimate information on him.

But the funniest part of this whole shebang is that Shaq became a law enforcer himself, after snitching on his friends from his time in LA.  That could be a little bit of a power move, but a sneaky one nonetheless.

The gangs of Compton in LA are notorious. They’ve had high-profile victims, and almost anybody famous does come into their radar. Shaq was one of the few who managed to escape relatively free, but even he had a few mishaps.

This might be one of the reasons why the big man was the one who got traded, and not Kobe. His influence of him on gangs and vice versa seemed to only get stronger, and the team wasn’t ready to see their star man succumb at some point.

Also Read: “Go out there and play at a level that hasn’t been seen since Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant”: Karl-Anthony Towns reveals his ceiling with Anthony Edwards

Post Edited By: Jeet Pukhrambam
Los Angeles Lakers NBA Shaquille O'Neal

About the author

Arun Sharma

Arun Sharma is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. A double degree holder and a digital marketer by trade, Arun has always been a sports buff. He fell in love with the sport of basketball at a young age and has been a Lakers fan since 2006. What started as a Kobe Bryant obsession slowly turned into a lifelong connection with the purple and gold. Arun has been an ardent subscriber to the Mamba mentality and has shed tears for a celebrity death only once in his life. He believes January 26, 2020, was the turning point in the passage of time because Kobe was the glue holding things together. From just a Lakers bandwagoner to a basketball fanatic, Arun has spent 16 long years growing up along with the league. He thinks Stephen Curry has ruined basketball forever, and the mid-range game is a sight to behold. Sharma also has many opinions about football (not the American kind), F1, MotoGP, tennis, and cricket.

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