Mercilessly Punched for 19 Years, Shaquille O’Neal Unearths Failed Attempt to Gain Late NBA Commissioner’s Sympathy: “He Took Off His Glasses…”

Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most unstoppable forces in NBA history. Even in his early years in the league, Shaq was a dominant player. But it was by the time he got to the Los Angeles Lakers that he became his ultimate version. He was so big and athletic that it was almost impossible for any team to stop him in the paint.

While there were not a lot of ways to stop someone of his sheer size, the teams figured out one annoying practice to stop the big man. After getting frustrated by this repeatedly, Shaq once met with the commissioner to put a stop to it, but was quickly shut down.

Shaquille O’Neal complained to the commissioner

During a recent interview with Shaquille O’Neal, Rex Chapman talked about facing Shaq in the NBA. Chapman, laughing, admitted, “We were lucky that you are a nice person.” This is because, back in the day, the players were thought to foul Shaq hard, to make him shoot free throws rather than letting him score easily. But Shaq remained the “bigger person” by not retaliating in the same way.

However, this meant that Shaq had to constantly fight through contact to score, and had to face this throughout his career. The Big Aristotle was certainly not happy about this tactic used by the opposing teams. He decided to air out his frustrations and went to see David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA during Shaq’s playing years.

Shaq revealed the conversation he had with Stern. Shaq said, “Yo man, these guys are beating me up. And he (David Stern) took his glasses off, and he said, Shaq, 28 teams are saying this about you.“

Shaq knew there was no way for the teams to stop him. And when he was driving down the court, he was literally going through players. So he was forced to live with how the teams in the NBA were guarding him.

The NBA changed for Shaq

Shaq’s brute strength made every other player step out of the way. And if you didn’t move, he would go right through you to the basket. There was simply no real way of stopping him, so the teams developed a tactic to reduce Shaq’s effectiveness.

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Shaquille O’Neal, although a dominant force, was one of the worst shooters in the league. So most teams understood that it was better to just foul Shaq and make him shoot free throws, rather than allow him to drive through the line.

This was infamously called the ‘Hack-a-Shaq‘. Gregg Popovich once notoriously made his team foul Shaq on the first possession of a game. Almost every team in the NBA did it at some point to neutralize Shaq’s impact on the court.

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Do you think this was a good way to stop a player like Shaq? Let us know in the comments!