Shaquille O’Neal was known for pulling wild pranks during his NBA career, and Gary Vitti, a former head athletic trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers, revealed how careful he had to be around him. During an appearance on Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, Vitti revealed the steps he took to ensure he didn’t get pranked by O’Neal.
“I love Shaq,” Vitti said. “I absolutely adore him, but you had to be looking over your shoulder all the time. All the time. Like, you couldn’t leave a toothbrush out or anything like that, ’cause he’s going to stick it in his c***k. You couldn’t eat any food that was out… I mean, if it wasn’t hermetically sealed, I didn’t eat it if he was around.”
You certainly had to be careful, especially with toothbrushes. Former NBA player Jason Richardson revealed a gross prank O’Neal had pulled on Lou Amundson when they were teammates on the Phoenix Suns. He put Amundson’s mouthpiece in his backside and then stirred his toothbrush inside the toilet after defecating in it. Talk about disgusting.
Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue, another former teammate, claimed that O’Neal once defecated in Devean George’s shoe for not bringing donuts for the team. George later stated that it never happened, but added that he might have done that to a teammate during his time with the Orlando Magic.
O’Neal had this weird fascination with feces, and Vitti unfortunately got to experience that personally as well. He spoke about a nasty encounter when he’d gone to the washroom at the practice site in El Segundo, California.
“So I go over to the urinal and I made the big mistake of not checking to see if he was in the stall,” Vitti stated. “… I’m peeing, good flow, everything’s good. All of a sudden, I hear my name being called behind me. I turn around and he’s standing up, seven feet tall, right? He’s standing up in the stall, and he’s holding a piece of toilet paper after he wiped his butt with it.
“I said it about as nicely as I possibly could,” Vitti continued. “So, you know what was on the toilet paper, right? So, I turn [and say], ‘Oh man, that’s disgusting.’ [He said], ‘Look at it.’ I said, ‘I’m not looking at it’ … I see something out of the corner of my eye. He threw it at me.”
Fortunately for Vitti, O’Neal’s throw wasn’t an accurate one, and the toilet paper landed on the floor. That was probably the only time the trainer was delighted about the fact that O’Neal wasn’t a good shooter.
Despite all this, Vitti, who was with the Lakers from 1984 to 2016, has a lot of love for O’Neal. He believes O’Neal could have gone down as the greatest player of all time, but reckons that was never the big man’s dream.
Vitti thinks the Hall of Famer underachieved despite winning four titles, three Finals MVPs, one MVP, and two scoring titles. That’s a testament to just how great O’Neal was.
