The year 2018 was a big one for the O’Neals. Shaquille O’Neal‘s eldest son, Shareef, graduated high school and joined UCLA. Shareef and his family received devastating news within weeks of being with the Bruins. Working out, Shareef noticed irregular heartbeats, which led him to turn on his heart monitors. Days later, the trainers called him and his parents and gave them the news. At the end of his first semester, 18-year-old Shareef was set to undergo open heart surgery. After a successful surgery, Shareef wanted to get away from the hospital, and his dad’s 5-word message helped him do just that, as per his interview on Playmaker HQ.
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The UCLA medical staff had diagnosed Shareef with anomalous coronary artery diagnosis. It is a congenital heart defect that is caused by an artery growing in the wrong place. Some athletes can go their entire career with the defect and not have anything affected, but that wasn’t the case with Shareef, which led to the surgery.
Shaquille O’Neal helped son Shareef push a 3-week recovery into 8 days
After a successful open heart surgery, the timeframe for a patient to be discharged is 3 or more weeks. During that time, the patient has to relearn some basics, like walking and more. The goal each day is to walk a bit further than the previous day. On Day 1, Shareef did not feel like doing so, but his father, Shaquille O’Neal, pushed him with a 5-word message.
Shareef narrated on Playmaker HQ,
“I was just waking up and they were teaching me how to walk again. My dad goes like, “If you come back from this, you the baddest motherf***er alive!” At first I didn’t really hear him, but as I started to be more and more conscious of what was going on, that was the only thing I remember from that surgery, from that whole process. He’s like, “You come back from this, you the baddest motherf***er alive!” Once that clicked in my mind, I was like yeah, let’s walk.”
His dad’s encouraging words helped Shareef reduce his discharge time from 3 weeks all the way down to 8 days. It’s been over 4 years, and Shareef still lives by his dad’s words.
What is Shareef up to nowadays?
In the summer of 2022, Shareef went undrafted in the 2022 NBA Draft. He played for the Los Angeles Lakers in the summer league, before joining the NBA G League Ignite. Reef played one season with the team and is bound to return for his second go at it this season. During that time, he averaged 5.6 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1 assist per contest.
Even though the NBA is a long shot for the Lakers legend’s son, he still hasn’t given up on his league dreams and continues working towards them. Shareef hopes this year would be his breakout year with the Ignite, which may open the doors for an NBA contract.
