“There Was No Stopping Shaq!”: Shaquille O’Neal ‘Re-Lives’ Glory Days with Highlight Reel on Instagram

Shaquille O’Neal is well known for being very active on his social media accounts. In fact, Shaq shared a reel at around 4 AM ET today on his Instagram stories when most of America was fast asleep. The reel highlighted one of his emphatic and iconic dunks on AC Green in a 1998 game against the Dallas Mavericks. The highlight was a token of Shaq’s prowess as a prolific dunker and a dominant player who was unstoppable in the paint.

The caption of the reel uploaded by Instagram user von1500  described the Big Aristotle’s game quite accurately. The user wrote, “He did this every game for 19 years. Dunk everything. There was no stoppin’ Shaq.” 

Indeed, the caption sums up the Shaq effect on the NBA, given that defenders had to develop a ploy called the ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ to foul the Big Man and take advantage of his abysmal free-throw shooting to contain his destruction.

Shaq is well aware of his dominance on the floor and still regards himself as the most dominant player in the league’s history. Perhaps, the Diesel was reminiscing his old days late in the night, which led him to upload this reel on his Instagram stories.

This isn’t the first time that the Big Diesel has reminded fans of his dominant status. If one would casually go through his Instagram, they would very well notice the pride that Shaq takes in the prime days of his career. This year in May, Shaq shared a TikTok showcasing his best highlights, reminding his fans with the caption that he is indeed “The Most Dominant of All Time (TMDE).” 

Coach Gregg Popovich once mocked Shaq for complaining against ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ strategies

Shaquille O’Neal was unstoppable with his prowess and it was almost unthinkable to guard him as a player. Hence, defenders had to come up with other ways, such as the ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ method, to stop O’Neal from dominating in the paint. Here, defenders would purposefully foul Shaq to take advantage of his poor free-throw shooting skills to stop him from scoring.

Of course, O’Neal was not a fan of these tricks used by the defenders on him. He would often complain and criticize such ‘cowardly’ strategies and has even gotten into altercations with players for the same. During the 2008 Playoffs between the Spurs and the Suns, Shaq openly called out Coach Gregg Popovich’s team for using such tricks on him.

However, Coach Pop took no heed to Shaq’s complaint. Instead, he once laughed at the Big Diesel on the court, after Shaq got hacked by a Spurs player withing the first 5 seconds of a regular season game. When Shaq looked back at Coach Pop, the Spurs coach seemed to gleefully laugh at him and even gave him a thumbs-up. Well, this was taken lightly by Shaq as Coach Pop’s action seemed to humor him for the moment.