"Shaquille O'Neal choked out Gordan Giricek before a game": Hall of Famer makes startling revelation about Shaq's Suns tenure
Shaquille O'Neal is known for his outlandish personality, but the spirit of comepition brings out a meaner edge to him. There was one occasion towards the end of his career when he got in a nasty scuffle with a teammate.
Throughout his Hall of Fame career, Shaquille O'Neal suited up for an array of franchises. One of those teams was the Phoenix Suns. During his brief stint with the team, he got into a physical altercation with a teammate.
During an interview in 2018, Grant Hill touched on a memorable moment from Shaq from their time as teammates. That being when he put Gordan Giricek in a sleeper hold and knocked him out before a game.
"Shaquille O'Neal choked out Gordan Giricek before a game," Hill said. "He put him in a sleeper hold and the guy was knocked out, passed out on the locker room floor before the game. Definitely one of Shaq's memorable -- or not-so-memorable -- moments from the year and a half that I played with him with the Phoenix Suns."
Hill later explained that the altercation broke out because Giricek did not like dumping the ball to the star center in the post.
"You know, Giricek was a good player from Croatia, a good shooter, but he never passed the ball inside," Hill said. "He would always kind of look Shaq off and shoot it. And they kind of would go back and forth and exchange words and Giricek would kind of talk trash to Shaq. And so one day Shaq was like, 'You know what, I'mma let this guy know who I am.'
How long did Shaquille O'Neal play for the Phoenix Suns?
As Grant Hill mentioned, Shaquille O'Neal did not have a long stay on the Phoenix Suns. In total, he played 103 games for them over a span of two seasons.
In an attempt to shake things up from the "seven seconds or less" team, the Suns acquired Shaq from the Miami Heat. Despite being in his mid 30s, the former MVP still had some left in the tank to help a team.
Armed with one of the top point guards in the league in Steve Nash, Shaq put up good numbers in his Suns tenure. In his lone full season with the team, he averaged 17.8 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks across 75 games. The 2009 season would be when Shaq landed the last All-Star nomination of his career.
Following that year, Shaquille O'Neal opted to leave the Suns to join forces with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers.