Tag: shaquille o’neal

Shaquille O’Neal wins Academy Award

One of the most dominant Lakers players of all time just added to his trophy collection.

Shaquille O’Neal, one of the greatest Los Angeles Lakers players of all time and perhaps the most dominant big man ever, has just added a new trophy to his huge collection.

On Sunday, he and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry won an Academy Award for their documentary short film “The Queen of Basketball.”

The film highlights the life of Lusia Harris, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame who died earlier this year. She is considered one of the greatest women’s basketball players ever and a pioneer for females in the sport.

In college, as a member of the Delta State University Lady Statesmen, she dominated the landscape by leading her team to three consecutive national titles while being named the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) tournament MVP each time.

Harris also helped lead the United States national team to a gold medal in the 1975 FIBA World Championship and a silver medal in the Olympics the following year.

In 1977, Harris became the first woman officially drafted by an NBA team, the New Orleans Jazz, although she had no interest in trying out for the team, possibly because she was pregnant at the time.

This Oscar award also gives O’Neal another thing in common with his late partner in crime, Kobe Bryant. Bryant won an Oscar in 2018 for his animated short film “Dear Basketball.”

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Shaquille O’Neal makes bold prediction about Lakers’ playoffs chances

Lakers great Shaquille O’Neal believes so much in his former team that he made a shocking prediction about them.

In eight seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaquille O’Neal was perhaps the most dominant player in NBA history, as he helped lead the team to some memorable and tough playoff wins.

His former team has been struggling through arguably its most disappointing season in memory, given that it was expected to contend for the NBA championship.

Now, with just a few weeks remaining in the regular season, LeBron James is putting up one of his greatest statistical seasons ever, while three unexpected role players have given the team some much-needed youth, energy and hustle.

The Lakers are not a lock to reach the play-in tournament, but O’Neal said on “The Big Podcast With Shaq” that they not only make the play-in tournament, but they will also go on to do something amazing.

It’s a bold prediction, and Phoenix Suns fans will surely claim it’s a disrespectful one, but perhaps there’s just a little bit of merit to it.

Two Tampa Bay Buccaneers were named after Shaquille O’Neal… AND Hakeem Olajuwon

Buccaneers guard Shaq Mason and edge-rusher Shaq Barrett were both named for Shaquille O’Neal… and Hakeem Olajuwon. What are the odds?

After losing left guard Ali Marpet to retirement and right guard Alex Cappa to the Bengals in free agency, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were suddenly very short on interior protectors for one Tom Brady. General manager Jason Licht and his staff were able to alleviate this to a point by stealing former Patriots guard Shaq Mason for a fifth-round pick.

Not only does Mason have what it takes to slip right in to protecting Brady — something he did in Foxboro from 2015 through 2019 — but he also has something interesting in common with one of his new teammates. Mason and edge-rusher Shaquil Barrett were named for the same two NBA Hall-of-Famers.

And as it turns out, the name Shaquille became a loot more popular around the time that the 28-year-old Mason and the 29-year-old Barrett were born.

(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

“I liked Shaquille O’Neal and I liked Hakeem Olajuwon,” Barrett’s father Steven told Vice.com in 2016, “so I named my son after both of the centers I really liked. [O’Neal] was a good role model for my son to follow. If my son can accomplish, two percent of what O’Neal accomplished, then I’d certainly be all right with that.”

(Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports)

The name, which means “handsome” in Arabic, first popped on the Social Security Administration’s Top 1,000 baby names in 1991, and things just blossomed from there.

“I was the only one around with the name,” Mason said in that same article. “The first time I met another Shaq was actually Shaquille O’Neal at a Grizzlies game.”

Well, now there are two Shaqs in the same locker room. And when the Buccaneers play the Carolina Panthers, their NFC South division rival, twice in the 2022 season, they’ll run into another one: Carolina safety-backer Shaq Thompson.

“I was the only Shaq growing up until I got to high school, where I met another Shaq,” Thompson said.

Shaquille Green Thompson, however, was not named after both Shaq and Hakeem.

Shaquille O’Neal teams up with pro mom Rachel Rohanna to help promote Epson’s title sponsorship of LPGA qualifying tour

Epson has a new five-year agreement to be the title sponsor of the LPGA’s official qualifying tour.

Three years ago, Epson partnered with Shaquille O’Neal to help save the world from the hassle of constantly changing printer ink cartridges. O’Neal became the face of the game-changing EcoTank, cartridge-free printers with supersized ink tanks.

That’s how a supersized O’Neal eventually found himself in Atlanta taping a video with the petite Rachel Rohanna to help announce Epson’s new five-year agreement as title sponsor of the LPGA’s official qualifying tour.

“I was a good 2 feet shorter,” said Rohanna. “I’m kind of used to looking up to people, but he held my golf club and it looked like a toothpick in his hand.”

The online commercial will be released on Wednesday across Shaq’s social channels. The former NBA superstar and TV regular has 24 million followers on Instagram, 15.6 million on twitter and 9.2 million on Facebook as well as his own reality show called “Shaq Life.”

Rachel Rohanna hangs out with husband Ethan Virgili and daughter Gemelia at an Epson Tour event. (Courtesy photo)

So far everything about the Epson Tour’s relationship with the LPGA has been next-level – from the little things like lowering the cost of entry fees by 10 percent ($50), to bigger things like guaranteed purses of at least $200,000 and $10,000 sponsorship opportunities for tour graduates. And, of course, Shaq.

Celebrities aren’t often associated with qualifying tours.

“I’ve been thinking about how we could get involved in golf for a long time,” said Keith Kratzberg, CEO, Epson America, Inc.

“There’s a lot involved with the various aspects of sponsorship. The charity aspect is a really important aspect of professional golf. … As a qualifying tour, we asked ourselves the question: What’s really important here?”

Players certainly appreciate the extra mile.

“I thought it was incredible that a global brand like Epson was kind of putting the money into the tour,” said Epson graduate Fatima Fernandez Cano, “and not only just saying, here’s some money, now you’re on the tour, go on with your life.

“They’re actually supporting us, supporting women’s golf.”

Rachel Rohanna and NBA star Shaquille O’Neal (courtesy of Epson)

Rohanna, the first mother to graduate from the Epson Tour, said it was intimidating to test out her acting skills for the first time in front of Shaq, but that he made their hour together “chill.”

“It always blows my mind that people have never heard of the Epson Tour,” said Rohanna, “formally the Symetra Tour. To have someone like Shaq … he’s a great guy in general, to have this many followers, and announce it and actually be enthusiastic about it, I think it’s great for everyone.

“It’s going to be huge.”

Rohanna invited Shaq to a pro-am and to visit the family farm in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

“The way I’m thinking about it,” said Kevin Garton, Epson’s Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing, “is it’s just the beginning.”

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Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley call out Sixers star James Harden

TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley call out Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden for poor peformance.

The Philadelphia 76ers swung a big deal with the Brooklyn Nets when they acquired James Harden from the Nets. The future Hall of Famer is a guy who can take games over in the blink of an eye in terms of his scoring and he can also make plays for others. He has made a huge impact in Philadelphia thus far.

However, Harden has a reputation for not showing up in big games whether it’s the regular season or the playoffs, and Thursday was another example of that.

In a huge matchup with the Nets at home in the first matchup between the teams since the deal, Harden only had 11 points on 3-for-17 shooting in a 129-100 loss where Brooklyn led by as many as 36.

Afterward, TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley called out Harden for his poor play in big games. O’Neal said:

For the last 5, 6, 7, maybe 10 years, that’s the knock on James. Will he show in the big game? Today’s a big game. You know you publicly said you didn’t want to be third fiddle. You wanted to be here. You wanted to smoke so this is the smoke. Today we’re at the cigar bar. What are you gonna do? We at the cigar bar, we at the Hookah bar, you got to step up. This is a big game. The knock for a long time is you’re not gonna step up and guess what? Charles is right. You haven’t stepped up this is a scary situation because we brought you here for a reason. We need you. If we get to a Game 7 situation which is the big game, you need the big main players to step up and he hasn’t stepped up in a long time.

Barkley added this on Harden:

James got the reputation. He’s struggled in all big games because if you go back and look, even when they were in Houston when they should’ve beat the Golden State Warriors. They were there. They were up until Chris Paul got hurt and Chris was the leader of that team, but James is developing a reputation and it’s fair, James is a terrific player, a great player, but when the lights are the brightest, he has played awful and like I said, the thing about being a great player, you don’t have to play great, you just can’t stink up the join, and he stunk up the joint tonight.

To their points, Harden does have this reputation. In the 2018 Western Conference finals with the Rockets, he shot 5-for-21 in Game 5 of that series and Chris Paul bailed him out. In Game 4 of the 2020 playoffs in Round 2, Harden shot 2-for-11 and he shot 5-for-17 against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 for the Nets in 2021.

This is a reputation that he carries with him and he will have to figure out how to get it done in the big games for the Sixers.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Jay Williams believes Shaq wouldn’t be able to guard Sixers’ Joel Embiid

ESPN’s Jay Williams believes that Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t guard Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid.

Philadelphia 76ers star big man Joel Embiid is one of the bright stars in the league. He is currently leading the league in scoring at 29.8 points per game as a center and if he can keep this up, he would be the first big man to lead the league in scoring since the great Shaquille O’Neal.

Due to how great Embiid has been and how much of an all-time great O’Neal is, there have been debates about Embiid and Shaq in terms of who is better and what the Philadelphia star has to do to pass him. Obviously, Embiid has to win as O’Neal has four championships on his resume, but Embiid is as skilled as any big man.

ESPN’s Jay Williams believes that Shaq would have no shot at guarding Embiid:

I think Shaq would have fits trying to guard him. Shaq wouldn’t be able to guard him. I would put him on the perimeter all day long.

Williams’ co-hosts, Max Kellerman and Keyshawn Johnson, then brought up how fit O’Neal was with the Orlando Magic and how athletic he was in his younger age.

Williams said:

I hear what you’re saying. He was an athlete but still, I know scouting reports back when he was a young Shaq when they would just string him out on the perimeter because he still had a hard time guarding pick-and-rolls. Joel Embiid don’t guard pick-and-rolls either. I’m saying I would put Joel Embiid in that situation.

Embiid is great, there is no doubt about that, but O’Neal is on the top 75 list for a reason. It would be interesting to do something of a simulation of Embiid vs. a young Shaq 1-on-1 though. They are both such dominant big men.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Shaq stats: Where does Shaquille O’Neal rank all time in each statistical category?

Shaquille O’Neal is one of the NBA’s most dominant player. Where do Shaq’s regular season stats rank all time?

It’s hard to over-estimate the impact Shaquille O’Neal made during his time as a pro. Not only was he one of the most dominant NBA players of all time, but he was a darling of pop culture. From MVPs and rings to movies, hip hop, and video games, Shaq put his big fingerprints just about everywhere.

Despite being one half of one of the messiest NBA breakups, O’Neal was one of the Association’s most prominent players for nearly two decades. Shaq has career averages of 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game – no wonder he goes by Superman.

O’Neal is one of the undisputed best players in NBA history. How do his career regular season stats stack up?

2 former LSU players crack ESPN’s Top 76 all-time NBA players list

Find out where the pair of LSU stars landed in ESPN’s rankings.

With the NBA celebrating its 75-year anniversary at All-Star Weekend, ESPN released a list of the top 76 players in that time span. Former LSU basketball stars “Pistol” Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal cracked the list, with Maravich coming in at No. 54 and O’Neal at No. 11.

Maravich was an outstanding basketball player in college. In his first game at LSU, he got a triple-double, scoring 50 points, grabbing 14 rebounds, and dished out 11 assists. In three years with the Tigers, Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game. He led the NCAA in scoring all three seasons and won the National Player of the Year Award two times and SEC Player of the Year three times.

He played 11 seasons in the NBA for the Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans/Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics. Unfortunately, his NBA career was cut short due to injuries, but Maravich still managed to lead the NBA in scoring with 31.1 points per game during the 1976-77 season. Maravich made four All-NBA honors and was a five-time All-Star.

Meanwhile, O’Neal was a two-time All-American and two-time SEC Player of the Year at LSU. In 1991 he was named AP Player of the Year. O’Neal averaged 21.6 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 4.6 blocks per game in three years with the Tigers.

O’Neal went on to play 20 seasons and the NBA and won four championships. He was a 15-time All-Star, won the MVP award once, and Finals MVP three times. O’Neal is one of the most dominant players to ever play in the NBA with his size, quickness, and strength.

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With LeBron James breaking the all-time scoring record, where do Boston Celtics alumni stack up behind him?

Out of the top 40 scorers of all time in the regular season and playoffs combined, there are now 9 Celtics alumni. Can you guess them?

After flirting with the record for some time, Los Angeles Lakers star forward LeBron James finally broke the all-time scoring record of combined playoff and regular-season points scored with 44,157 total scored as of this writing in the Lakers’ recent 117 – 115 road loss to the Golden State Warriors this past Saturday.

Given how storied the Boston Celtics organization has been through its three-quarters of a century of existence, there are plenty of Celtics alumni below James on that list — but where in relation to each other, and how many in total make up the top 40 scorers in all games in NBA history? Building off of a comprehensive list of all top 40 scorers in league history put together by our sister site HoopsHype, we’ve identified nine Boston alumni.

See if you can suss them all out on your own — and better yet, in order — before scrolling down to check.