Former Boston Celtic big man Shaquille O’Neal is widely regarded as one of the greatest big men to play the game due to his near-unstoppable near-basket offensive game, bulldozing his way to the rim like a hot knife cuts through butter.
Imagine if he had a 3-point shot to punish teams from outside as well?
While it’s far too late to put things to the test with Shaq having hung up his sneakers from the game a decade ago, word is that the New Jersey native has a deep jumper he never really tried on the parquet in live-game action.
Speaking with Heavy’s Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson, Shaq’s ex-fianceé — actress Nicole “Hoopz” Alexander — revealed on the “Heavy Live With Scoop B Show” that the 7-foot-2 Hall-of-Fame center kept his trey under wraps, only to break it out at home as the two would play a game of 21.
“We had a couple little games we’d play all the time, you know? Just having fun,” she offered.
“He’ll hit the three and he actually has a good corner shot. I would’ve never thought it. Obviously he did it a couple of times in the games or whatever, but yeah he’ll stand back and shoot the three and I’m like, ‘What the — oh ok!’ But he really can’t do that in the game.”
“He’ll do it in the warm-ups maybe,” she added.
WATCH: The best of Boston’s Jayson Tatum with the Celtics in 2019-20 https://t.co/MUFE2fGXLF
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) November 10, 2020
Given Shaq’s infamous free throw shooting percentage, it seems unlikely that the Big Aristotle’s jumper would return much success in live games, but Alexander noted she did her best to help him work on that as well.
“If you go back and check the stats on the last year that he played for Boston, his free throw percentage went up because we were in that house on the court all the time making him shoot free throws,” she explained.
Even with her help, it was only his fourth-best season at the charity stripe, shooting 55.7% — we appreciate the effort, though!
[jwplayer uloPlAaR]
[lawrence-related id=42493,32372,27612,18653]
[listicle id=43017]