There has yet to be an NBA player that has matched Shaquille O’Neal in his physical gifts. His speed and quickness at his size made him a generational talent. However, those are attributes that aren’t teachable. O’Neal’s sons, Shareef and Shaqir are basketball junkies like their father, but he doesn’t make them study his game footage. Instead, he shows them Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady tapes for them to maximize their skillset as a basketball player.
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In a passage of O’Neal’s biography Shaq Uncut, the four-time NBA champion shed light on his fatherly dynamic with his two sons. He has three sons in total but Myles pursued a career outside of sports. The basketball genetics transferred to his two youngest sons. O’Neal made sure they didn’t ride off the coattails of their father and became students of the game. He said,
“Both Shareef and Shaqir really love basketball. They are like little sponges. They want to know everything. They love the NBA, so I get some tape of Allen Iverson and we watch that, and then some of Tracy McGrady, and they can’t believe how great TMac was before he got injured. They love seeing highlights of their uncle Kobe, too.”
Both of his sons were born in the 2000s, Shareef in 2000 and Shaqir in 2003. As a result, they were only children when Iverson and McGrady were in their prime. Once their father showed them the footage, they were in disbelief. Specifically, they couldn’t believe how great McGrady was before he suffered injuries with the Magic and Rockets.
Shareef adopted his father’s height growing to 6-foot-10. Therefore, his role on a team doesn’t enable him to perform the actions of Iverson and McGrady on a nightly basis. However, Shaqir is 6-foot-7 and is a product of studying the offensive capabilities of the two Hall-of-Famers.
The two brothers also enjoy watching tapes of their uncle Kobe Bryant. They were up close and personal to witness the Lakers dynasty of the early 2000s. Although they study a variety of different players, their father remains their idol.
However, despite the clear pride he has for him, there was a point in time when Shareef actively hid his father’s identity.
Shareef kept his father’s identity a secret
It’s difficult to navigate life as a child of a celebrity and Shareef wanted to be as normal as possible. The one way he could fit in is if nobody knew that there was something different about him. Therefore, he was silent about Shaquille O’Neal being his father.
“The thing about me that not a lot of people know is nobody knew who my dad was at none of my schools until I was about 15 or 16 years old,” Shareef said. “All the parent-teacher conferences, it was just my mom who came. It was a set plan. We just kind of hid it so people didn’t treat us differently.”
O’Neal lived away from the family during the season so it was easy for Shareef to keep this secret. However, since the reveal of his father, he’s embraced being the child of an NBA legend. In addition, he continues to strive to keep his legacy active in his pursuit of an NBA career.
