"I was embarrassed & scared" - Shaquille O'Neal credits drill sergeant father for instilling his dunking dominance in paint
Regarded as one of the most dominant and intimidating NBA players of all time, Shaquille O'Neal's strength and size proved too much to handle for many, especially with his powerhouse dunks. "The Diesel" revisited on "The Big Podcast With Shaq" that his drill sergeant father helped him become a ferocious dunker.
O'Neal said that he didn't regularly dunk at a young age until he received a strong pep talk from his stepfather, including a slap on the face when he was too focused on imitating an NBA legend's playstyle as opposed to playing his own brand of basketball.
"My junior year (of high school), the whole season I could never dunk," O'Neal said, "I tried to dunk in a game one time, miss, I was embarrassed and scared. ... So, one game, I got 40, I'm doing my magic, I cross them at the top of the key, I go to finger roll it and I miss. My father, drill sergeant, walks on the floor, calls timeout, 'Magic Johnson, be Shaq, start dunking.'"
There are times when modeling one's own game to another successful basketball player often leads to promising results. However, there are times when nothing outmatches an NBA player who knows his strengths and utilizes them to gain the upper hand.
LA Lakers legend Shaquille O'Neal took that moment with his stepfather and used it as fuel to express his anger on each dunk attempt. It became a motivator that cultivated him into becoming an imposing NBA presence.
Additionally, that style of play added to his dominant physicality and size, which became a tall order to handle for players who were assigned to slow him down.
Shaquille O'Neal discusses the only three NBA players to have only dunked on him
On the "Knuckleheads" podcast, Shaquille O'Neal said that only three NBA players dunked on him in his entire professional career.
"I take pride in playing 19 years and only being dunked on three times," O'Neal said, "So, the first person to dunk on me was Derrick Coleman. Yeah, drop step with the left hand. Tim Perry, yeah, got me a baseline, yeah, and then Michael Jordan."
It's a testament to O'Neal's legacy as an effective rim protector to be posterized only three times in his NBA career. With how intimidating he was to challenge at the rim says a lot about how feared and challenging of a player he was.
In his 20 seasons, Shaquille O'Neal put up 23.7 points (58.2% shooting), 10.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.3 blocks per game.