On Friday, Shaquille O'Neal will officially join the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Yes, Shaq is slamming it home one more time. Without offending any other center of the past couple of decades, including fellow Hall of Fame Class of 2016 center Yao Ming, Shaq was simply a level above his contemporaries.
He changed the rules of the game—literally. After Kobe Bryant and the Lakers maximized O'Neal to back-to-back 2000 and 2001 NBA titles, the NBA changed the defensive rules to allow teams to play zone defenses, rather than the previously required man-to-man defense. Three hundred and twenty-five pounds packed into a 7-foot 1-inch aggressively athletic body made it tough to play one-on-one defense for any team.
Even after the rule change, the Lakers won the 2002 NBA Championship and wound up in the 2004 NBA Finals a couple of years later. The self-proclaimed "Most Dominant Ever" truly seemed like an unstoppable force for a slice of NBA history. The fact that he only won as many league Most Valuable Player awards as Bryant, despite being a media darling, spoke to O'Neal's frustrating lack of focus for regular seasons at a time. But three NBA Finals MVPs spoke to how dominant O'Neal was when the stakes raised to the highest levels.
Truly, O'Neal was a unique talent. Teams attempted to slow down O'Neal's dominance by intentionally fouling the big man, leading to embarrassing show of foul shots clanking off the rim. The practice became so common that it took on the name "Hack-a-Shaq," which is still mentioned when players like DeAndre Jordan or Dwight Howard comically hit the back end of the iron—or worse, miss the rim altogether.
The NBA has not seen a player with O'Neal's aggression at O'Neal's size since he retired as a member of the 2010-11 Boston Celtics. O'Neal spent the final eight years of his NBA career on four different teams, including winning a title with Dwyane Wade in Miami. Other stops included short stints playing alongside Steve Nash, LeBron James and Boston's "Big Three."
INFOGRAPHIC: The Diesel's 8 dominating seasons in the purple and gold.
Full Size - https://t.co/QEHJTUMJ6p pic.twitter.com/VF9TGm8yyG — Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) September 9, 2016
Sports
Get today's sports news out of Los Angeles. Here's the latest on the Dodgers, Lakers, Angels, Kings, Galaxy, LAFC, USC, UCLA and more LA teams.
Still, the prime and apex of O'Neal's basketball career came in Los Angeles, over the eight years he played with the purple and gold. O'Neal moved the Lakers from the Great Western Forum to the Staples Center. Already, one of the biggest personalities in the history of basketball has his jersey in the rafters at Staples Center with a statue on the way.
.@SHAQ made it more than just a game. #16HoopClass
Don't miss his HOF enshrinement at 7:30pm ET tonight on NBA TV! pic.twitter.com/nXjWac9dWs — NBA TV (@NBATV) September 9, 2016
O'Neal will be enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time with NBA TV offering television coverage.
