The Los Angeles Lakers have truly been blessed with a lot of talented players over the years. Shaquille O’Neal is counted among the greatest players to ever don the iconic Purple and Gold jersey.
He played with the Lakers for eight seasons and during his time with the team; he helped them in winning three NBA Championships. In the early 2000s, the Lakers were the dynasty in the league as they completed a three-peat behind Shaq’s amazing ability to play basketball.
The team was coached by the legendary Phil Jackson, who took some time off after leading the Chicago Bulls to six NBA Championships in the 1990s. Speaking of the Bulls, the organization was led to glory by none other than Michael Jordan.
The matchups between Shaq and MJ were always great and pretty enjoyable for NBA fans all around the globe. After all, they were both incredible players despite having a completely different skill set.
Shaquille O’Neal Reveals His Friends Supported Michael Jordan
Playing against Jordan was an honor for players back in the day and similar was the case for O’Neal, too. Shaq was the last player to defeat Michael Jordan in the NBA playoffs, so it’s obvious that he had a lot of talent.
But even that wasn’t enough for O’Neal’s friends to cheer for him. In a recent video, the 50-year-old revealed that his friends always used to root for Jordan whenever he played against him.
"Even though Michael Jordan was playing against me… all my friends were rooting for Michael Jordan." 😂@Shaq reflects on Jordan in the latest episode of 2KTV. Tune in for the entire interview! pic.twitter.com/tUPIJQEL7q
— NBA 2KTV (@NBA2K_2KTV) September 22, 2022
“Even though Michael Jordan was playing against me all my friends would be rooting for Michael Jordan. It’s funny right. And nobody had ever dunked on me, so they wanted Jordan to dunk on me. So it would be something to talk about like ‘Oooo he got you.’ So in my mind if he gets closer to the rim, I gotta lay him out. Jordan goes baseline and I lay him out. But I feel bad, this is Mike, oh my god what am I doing? And when I go to pick him up he says, ‘Don’t ever help nobody up. Good foul.’ Which showed that this guy was tougher than I thought he was.”
This is yet another story that proves that Jordan has an insane mentality. It’s this mentality that helped him in becoming so successful in the NBA.
After the incident, Shaq revealed that he understood Jordan’s point and then made it his mission to never pick somebody up after laying them down.
