"We had like two different mafias on the team" - Shaquille O'Neal on teaming up with Penny Hardaway and taking down guards and big men as a duo
Shaquille O'Neal played alongside Penny Hardaway in the early years of his NBA career, and although they failed to win a championship together, they were a threat in the early 1990s.
Hardaway has gone on several unfiltered rants in news conferences as the University of Memphis coach, and O'Neal said he has seen that side of Hardaway several times.
youtu.be/sMT93wUQliIOrlando's Anfernee Hardaway and Shaquille O'Neal in their first game at Madison Square Garden as NBA teammates.
Knicks 100, Magic 95
January 4, 1994.
📼 youtu.be/sMT93wUQliI https://t.co/Km6gIGX5QE
Hardaway is in his fourth year at Memphis, his alma mater. He had relative success, going 63-32 in his first three seasons, but with no NCAA Tournament appearances. But Memphis is 10-8 this season, and Penny has shown his frustration time and time again.
After a third straight loss, a reporter asked Hardaway if he was the right man for the job, at a school with a strong college basketball pedigree, and he went off. According to Commercialappeal, Hardaway said:
“I think the one thing I can say to this media – because this media gets kind of (expletive) up sometimes when it comes to me – (is) we don’t have our full roster. Y’all know we don’t have our full roster. So, stop asking me stupid (expletive) questions about if I feel like I can do something."
“If I had my roster like (SMU) did, then I feel like I can do whatever I want to do. I’m coaching really hard. My boys are playing really hard. I’m not embarrassed about nothing.
"We have four freshmen starting (Emoni Bates, Jalen Duren, Josh Minott, and sophomore Earl Timberlake). Y’all need to act like it. Act like we’ve got 17- and 18- and 19-year-olds out here trying to learn how to play against 22-, 23- and 24-year-old guys."
Shaquille O'Neal reveals how he partnered with Penny Hardaway to run the Orlando Magic
On the latest episode of "The Big Podcast" with Shaq, Shaquille O'Neal discussed the Hardaway saga. With Shaq being a former teammate of Penny, he was asked if the guard had an outburst like that during their time in Orlando. Shaq responded (from 27:10):
"Yeah, all the time."
"No. When we first got together, people always said, 'You lead the team and all that.' I can't relate to guards. So, I designed a program. Penny, you handle the guards. I'd handle the forwards and bigs. Like I can't tell a guard "motherf**ker ..." I don't feel comfortable doing that 'cause I don't know what they go through and what they doing.
"But forwards, power forwards, and centers, I always stayed on their a**. He took care of the guard coalition and I took care of the big man coalition. We had like two different mafias on the team."
Shaq was asked about a time Penny just lost his stuff, and he said:
"I think he was mad at Nick (Anderson) and (Dennis) Scott and all the other guards, and he just had it out."
Whatever they were doing worked, as the team made deep runs in the playoffs in 1995 and 1996. However, "The Big Diesel" left in the 1996 offseason to join the LA Lakers.
In 1995, Orlando reached the NBA Finals but were swept by Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets. The following season, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls exacted revenge on the Magic by sweeping them in the Eastern Conference finals.