Shaquille O’Neal, Who Hated His Mother Joining Lakers Fans in Bullying Him, Gave Her a Strong Instruction

Shaquille O’Neal was a force of nature on the court. However, his struggles from the foul line are well-documented and teams often exploited the same. In his docuseries, the 4-time NBA Champion spoke about his free throw skills and narrated an instance where he had strong instructions for his mother regarding free throws.

Shaquille O’Neal had a free throw percentage of 52.7 throughout his entire career. With that said, many well-wishers provided him with solutions to improve his shooting. On the other hand, many spent time mocking him for his deficiency from the line. In fact, Shaq once got offended when his mother, Lucille O’Neal, got involved with his free throw shooting.

Shaquille O’Neal asked his mother to stop mocking his free throw shooting

In the docuseries, Lucille O’Neal revealed that she used to hold up a sign in the then Staples center, that read, “bend your knees”. This was her advice to Shaq while shooting free throws. However, when she pulled this off at the arena, the entire crowd joined in. The whole arena echoed in unison, “Bend your knees!”

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Shaq wasn’t happy with the whole ordeal. In fact, he asked his mom to stop holding up the sign. Mama O’Neal said, “So he said mommy don’t put that sign up anymore! So I stopped doing that, and that was the end of my conversation about free throws.”

Therefore, the Big Diesel drew the line at his mother encourage mockery from fans in the arena. Shaq’s free throw shooting was already a source of distress for him. He didn’t want to add more pressure to that.

Shaq’s struggles from the foul line

For his teammates and friends, Shaq’s free throw block was simply weird. On the show, they revealed that Shaq would make all the free throws in practice. However, during the game, it felt like Shaq was an amateur at free throws.

His ex-coach Phil Jackson explained Shaq’s flawed technique. He said, “You have to have an arc on those shots, you have to get it up in the air so that it enters. But he would almost shot-put it into the hoop.” 

But as per his ex-Lakers teammate Rick Fox, the teammates were not very worried about his free throw skills because of his on-court dominance. Rick Fox said, “For as dominant he was, there wasn’t a day I sat on the free throw line where I was like, ‘oh man, Shaq’s got to shoot this free throw.'” 

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The three-time Finals MVP was still called out and mocked for his free throws. But Shaq took it all on the chin. But at times, the taunts would get unbearable for him as well.

What do you think about Shaq’s free throw shooting? Let us know in the comments below.