The 7’1″ phenom entered his rookie year, weighing around 285 pounds. Throughout his NBA career, his weight ranged between 345, 385, and even 415 pounds, with no major drop in performance. This provides a glimpse of how physically strong Shaquille O’Neal truly was on the court. To stop the big man, many teams created the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. And even his current VP tried jumping on his back to stop him.

Recently, Co-host ‘Bluu’ asked the ESPN analyst to define the greatness of Shaquille O’Neal. Firstly, Richard Jefferson clarified the different eras of debate and disagreed with the previous comment from Draymond Green. The Warriors superstar stated that he and Stephen Curry could overcome the Los Angeles Lakers legend if given a chance on the court. Jefferson said that wouldn’t be possible because “Shaq was a type of person that made you have to change the construction of your roster.”

The former NBA champion accepted that the pace and skills of the league might have changed, but there was no stopping Shaq. The only way to stop him was by excessive fouls. “You had to have two or three bigs just for foul trouble. Because if you had one big and he got into foul trouble and you didn’t have someone else, Shaq got so many subpar bigs paid because you needed to have them on their roster,” Jefferson said, via Come And Talk 2 Me.

Jefferson also acknowledged that opponents had to “club” Shaquille O’Neal to avoid buckets. A normal screen wouldn’t work on Shaq as he drew another comparison with an NBA great. “He’s the most physically dominant player maybe since Wilt and no one in between, that’s my opinion.”

The Big Aristotle never budged despite the number of fouls. And after a point, the fouls weren’t called in favor of Shaq, as per RJ. A very close confidant of the Lakers’ legend also shared this sentiment.

Shaquille O’Neal had a target on his back

The Philadelphia 76ers faced the Purple and Gold players in the 2000-01 NBA finals. Both the teams had an identical regular season record of 56-26. They also split their matchups 1-1 during the regular season. Eventually, in the finals, the Lakers would win the series 4-1, however, not before Allen Iverson got some revenge on Shaquille O’Neal during the regular season game.

“It was a regular season game and I remember they threw it to him. And I tried to foul him before he was going up and jumping up. I remember jumping on his back and he took me with him. I ain’t lying, dawg. And Kobe looked at me and said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? You trying to die? Are you trying to die?'”

Not everybody was using the AI technique to stop Shaq, but they instead used the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. Teams would load bigs up on their roster just so they could rack up fouls against Shaq. Whatever plan the 76ers used was not successful, as O’Neal averaged 28.0 points, 15.5 rebounds, and 4.5 blocks in the 2 regular season games.

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting second episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and Mountain West All-Freshman Team Selection, Asia Avinger.