Shaquille O’Neal has built a reputation as one of the most generous athletes in history, but a story recently retold by his former LSU coach, Dale Brown, highlights just how far his kindness goes, even in the middle of the biggest moment of his career.
According to Brown, during the 2000 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers, Shaq put aside the enormous pressure of chasing his first championship in L.A. to brighten the life of a dying child.
“Here is the real Shaquille O’Neal. The Lakers were playing the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis. If they lost the game that night in the NBA playoffs, it was over. If they won, they were the national champs. It was a very important game. That day, I got a call from a woman in Indianapolis.”
“She told me she had a nine-year-old son with a cancerous brain tumor. He had been operated on, he was in a coma, and it didn’t look like he was going to live. She said, ‘Coach, I know this is presumptuous of me, but is there any way Shaquille could call my son on my cell so he could at least die hearing his hero’s voice?’”
“I thought that was a big ask. I didn’t think I could get it done, but I said I’d try. So I called Shaquille. When he agrees to do something, he’ll always say, ‘Gotcha, coach. Gotcha, coach.’”
“Two years later, I was sitting with T.J. Moran and John Wooden at T.J. Ribs having lunch. A young man was standing off to the side, and he came over to talk to us. A woman came around the corner at the same time and said, ‘Coach Brown, you probably don’t remember me. I called you from Indianapolis.’”
“I said, ‘I know exactly who you are. Your son was dying of cancer and you wanted me to have Shaquille call him on your cell phone. Did he do it?’ She said, ‘No, he never called.’ I thought, oh, he didn’t.”
“But then she said, ‘No, he came to the hospital. He sat with that child for an hour and a half. He sang to him. He fed him. He told him jokes. My son woke up and talked to him.’ You’re not going to see that in the headlines.”
This wasn’t just any night. The Finals were hanging in the balance. The Lakers had dropped Game 3, shrinking their 2–0 series lead to 2–1, and Game 4 in Indiana loomed large. The Pacers had the chance to even the series, with Game 5 on their home floor as well. The pressure on O’Neal was monumental.
He had been in the league eight years, reached the Finals once before in Orlando, and fallen short. Now, with the Lakers, he was determined to prove he could carry a franchise to a championship.
Despite all that, Shaq carved out the time to give a sick boy and his family a memory they would never forget. That night, he poured in 36 points and 21 rebounds in Game 4, though he fouled out in overtime. Kobe Bryant, just 21 years old, seized the moment with three clutch baskets to seal a 120–118 Lakers win.
That victory essentially swung the series, and Los Angeles went on to capture the 2000 title, the first of Shaq’s three straight Finals MVP runs. He averaged a staggering 38.0 points, 16.7 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks while shooting 61.1 percent from the field, cementing one of the greatest Finals performances ever.
Of course, for those who have followed O’Neal’s life since retirement, acts of kindness like this are hardly rare. At 53, Shaq continues to live with a spirit of giving. Just this year, he donated 2,000 pairs of sneakers to underprivileged children through his shoe line.
He’s bought furniture for families in need, paid off strangers’ bills, and surprised people with PS5s, laptops, and iPhones. He’s even been known to slip YouTubers stacks of cash simply for dedicating themselves to helping others.
From buying a house for rapper Peter Gunz’s mother to offering a shoe deal to a six-year-old athlete who impressed him, Shaq’s generosity consistently makes headlines.
Yet it’s the private, unreported stories, the hospital visits, the quiet donations, the countless little miracles, that define him even more. What Brown shared about the 2000 Finals was just one example of a life lived with empathy and compassion at the forefront.
At a time when the world saw Shaquille O’Neal as the most unstoppable force in basketball, he proved he could be just as unstoppable in kindness. The 2000 Finals gave him his first championship and Finals MVP trophy, but perhaps his greatest victory came away from the court, lifting up a young boy in his darkest hour.
