Shaquille O’Neal was an unstoppable force during his peak in the NBA, and he believes he had one of the greatest moves in league history as well. On Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal, O’Neal named his top five moves of all time.
“At No. 5, we have the Boom Boom,” O’Neal said. “That would be me. If you don’t know how the Boom Boom works, it’s when I put my a** into your body and you have to move back. The No. 4 would be the Dream Shake. I experienced this personally in the ’94-95 Finals. There’s nothing you can do with that.
“No. 3, The Smitty,” O’Neal continued. “Steve Smith had a move that he’d go this way, but he’d be going that way. That’s No. 3. No. 2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That Skyhook was unstoppable. Lot of people will say that should be be No. 1. It’s not No.1, it’s No. 2.
“And No. 1, the [Allen Iverson] crossover,” O’Neal added. “You don’t think the crossover was crazy? Look what it did to the greatest player of all time.”
O’Neal was, of course, referring to Allen Iverson’s crossover against Michael Jordan all the way back in 1997. It is one of the most iconic moments in NBA history, and you can check it out below.
Iverson was just a rookie at the time, and this was highly impressive. He’d leave many more players bamboozled with the move over the course of his career. Would you put it at No. 1, though?
Well, as O’Neal mentioned, most would go with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Skyhook. It was basically an unstoppable hook shot that helped Abdul-Jabbar become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in 1984.
It would take nearly 40 years for someone to finally surpass Abdul-Jabbar, with LeBron James doing so in 2023. You’d have to give the nod to the Sky Hook for that reason.
As for the other moves mentioned, The Smitty was a surprising pick as well at No. 3. Steve Smith did use it to great effect, though.
Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream Shake came in at No. 4, and that seems a bit too low. Olajuwon used to make some incredible defensive players look foolish with it, and O’Neal acknowledged he couldn’t stop it.
As for O’Neal’s Boom Boom, that was just him physically overpowering whoever was defending him. He was quite nimble at his peak, and that combination of size and quickness made him impossible to guard.
O’Neal led the Los Angeles Lakers to a historic three-peat from 2000 to 2002, and teams just had no answer for him in those days. He averaged 35.8 points, 15.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.9 blocks per game in those three Finals series. That might just be the most dominant three-year stretch we’ve ever seen.
