Shaquille O’Neal has created quite a legacy as a professional basketball player. The Big Aristotle has seen the success that many dream of but he has also endured a great amount of pain. Injuries are a bitter truth in the lives of athletes and not much can be done except recover and move on. Shaq too suffered from his fair share of injuries while he was still in the league. The Lakers legend recalled one such incident in his recently released docuseries.?

In October 2022, HBO announced that a docuseries on Shaquille O’Neal’s life and career will soon be released. The four-part series premiered on November 23 and the episodes featured Shaq’s former Miami Heat teammate Dwyane Wade, and Phil Jackson, among others. In one of the episodes, Diesel shared an incident from when he was playing for the Heat and lost a winning game.

Shaquille O’Neal pushes through his injury

Every NBA coach has a specific way of training their players and so did former Miami Heat head coach Stan Van Gundy. Shaquille O’Neal was a Los Angeles Lakers player for eight seasons before he was traded to the Miami Heat. The 15x NBA All-Star said that when he was with the Lakers, then-coach Phil Jackson would allow for some amount of rest depending on how the team was performing. At such times, the players would take some time off, do light exercises, and play one practice game a day before the main game. However, with the Heat, the arrangement was entirely different. Therefore, when Shaq told Gundy he wanted to take a rest, the Heat coach refused.?

Shaq said, “So the last game against the Indiana Pacers. I’m playin’ but I’m not playing’ hard cause I don’t wanna get hurt. I go, try to take a charge, Jermaine O’Neal – knee to the thigh, rips it in half. I’m out, but I can’t be out. What do I do? Shoot it up.

Apart from Shaq, the Heat team also boasted three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade. However, the duo still was not enough to defeat the Pacers.

Shaq added, “Now we were up the whole game. I had the ball but I can?t make the Shaq move cause of this (points at his knee). And we lose.”?

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Shaquille O’Neal used to rely on painkillers

During an interview with Joe Holder from GQ, the three-time NBA Finals MVP shared how a trip to the doctor for a regular checkup revealed that he had a disease. The doctor reportedly informed Shaq that he had sleep apnea and he could possibly die from a stroke. Following that, the Diesel had to get a sleep machine to help him sleep. The doctor also suggested he stop taking painkillers due to his weak kidneys.

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“I was dependent upon painkillers?not addicted. Certain days when I couldn’t move, I just popped one or two, just to get me going. But I’m off that now,” Shaq told GQ.