Shaquille O’Neal always wanted to take pride in never being dunked on in the NBA. By the end of his Hall of Fame career, he was only dunked on thrice, which is pretty impressive for a player who spent two decades in the league. So, when Baron Davis, who was not even in the league back then, tried to dunk on the big fella, the latter had all the reasons to lose his cool.
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During an appearance on Out The Mud Podcast, Davis recalled the moment when he tried to dunk on Shaq as a teenager. At the time, Davis was in high school, trying to get an offer from a decent college program. After seeing people around him getting picked, he was disheartened.
However, Davis admitted that once he dunked on LaSalle Thompson, his confidence skyrocketed and he started believing that he would make it to the NBA. He said, “I tried to dunk on everybody that summer once I did that.”
High on confidence from that dunk, Davis tried to pull off the same move on Shaq as well.
Although he wasn’t successful as the ball bounced off the back of the rim, showing enough courage to attempt a dunk on Shaq deserves a lot of praise. However, the NBA legend wasn’t exactly looking to praise the young gun. Davis recalled that Shaq threatened to break his leg if he ever attempted to dunk on him again.
The 45-year-old revealed, “He [Shaq] came back, he said, ‘Hey, you ever do that again I’mma break your f***ing legs.’” Davis learned his lesson and never attempted to dunk on Shaq.
During an interview, Shaq revealed the names of the three players who were able to dunk on him in the NBA. He said, “In 20 years, I only got dunked on three times, Derrick Coleman, Michael Jordan, and Tim Perry.”
When asked why he highlights this stat from his legendary career, Shaq said, “Yeah, because I always wanted to take pride in not getting dunked on.”
All three dunks occurred when Shaq played for the Orlando Magic. So, if we take out the first four years of his career, Shaq managed to achieve everything in the league without being dunked on even once.
