Shaquille O’Neal shared a hilarious video on his Instagram story describing an embarrassing moment from early in his career. In the video, O’Neal spoke about the time he was dunked on by Derrick Coleman in front of his mom. O’Neal enjoyed a dominant time in the NBA. He was proficient in the paint and dunking on him was a challenge. This particular incident, however, occurred in New Jersey, his home and his mother Lucille O’Neal was in attendance.
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O’Neal had claimed that he was left with tears in his eyes after Coleman dunked over his head. And the fact that his parents were in attendance made it worse. To see his mom watching her son getting dunked on, was not something he had in mind.
Shaquille O’Neal shares a hilarious story on Instagram
O’Neal is widely considered to be one of the greatest basketball players the NBA has ever seen. He won a total of 4 NBA titles and claims to have been dunked on by only three players in his career.
But, since he has been retired for a long time, he sees the humor in his actions. Even if it meant getting dunked on in front of his mom, Lucille O’Neal.
Here is the video that he shared on his Instagram story, to his 30 million followers.
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One of the players who dunked on Shaq is Derrick Coleman. Unfortunately for the Lakers Legend, that particular dunk took place when his mother was in attendance:
“I always took pride in being a big man that never got dunked on. One time in New Jersey, I’m from Newark, in front of all the fans playing against Derrick Coleman. If you don’t know Derrick Coleman, he’s left-handed, and he’s a beast. Derrick has me on the block. He takes one dribble, two dribbles, drop step and give me a little elbow and dunked it. I didn’t know he dunked it until it came down and the ball hit me in the face. I looked up, at my mom, and I had a tear in my eyes.”
We can only imagine what a young Shaq would have thought of seeing his mom Lucille in the stands. The woman who raised him and gave him good values saw his son get slam dunked! And it was at home! Not a good look.
Shaquille O’Neal’s claim is, he was only dunked on thrice in his playing career!
The three-man list that O’Neal mentioned was cause for surprise. The second player he claimed had dunked on him “chest-to-chest” was former Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets forward Tim Perry.
In O’Neal’s defense, Perry packed a mean dunk and could get the best defenders on his day. The third player who managed to pull off a dunk on Shaquille O’Neal was none other than Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan.
In an interview on the Knucklheads podcast, O’Neal revealed information about the nature of those dunks. He claimed that most of them were either dunk-bys or due to moments when he was not paying attention. Considering the enormity of success that O’Neal has had on the court, and off it as well, he won’t be getting too many sleepless nights thinking about the players who managed to dunk over him!
