Jason Richardson was a guest on the Entirely NBA podcast recently. He talked about his time on the Phoenix Suns with Shaquille O’Neal, where he revealed one particularly unsavory prank that Shaq pulled. O’Neal got into a prank battle with teammate Lou Amundson. When Amundson got him back, Shaq took things too far by taking his mouthpiece and sticking it where the sun didn’t shine.
“We had a guy on the team, my first year in Phoenix – Lou Amundson. He used to ride a bike to practice every day because he lived right across from the arena. Every time he rode his bike, Shaq would take it and hide it, somewhere in the arena. Every day after practice, Lou was on a scavenger hunt trying to find his bike.”
“This went on for the entire season. Finally, toward the end of the season, Lou had enough. He said, “I’m done with this. Every practice, I spend 45 minutes to an hour trying to find my damn bike.” We tried to warn him. We said, ‘Yo, Lou, this is Shaq. I’ve heard the stories—doodoo surprise. He used to take a sh*t in people’s magazines and shoes. This is Shaq you’re dealing with, bro. You might want to chill.'”
“So he popcorned Shaq’s van, and Shaq was like ‘Oh okay, this is a good prank, but you don’t know who the f**k you messing with.'”
“The game happened. I come into the locker room, and I see Shaq. Shaq is walking around that locker room naked as nothing, real slow and tight. And he pulls a mouthpiece out of his a** and puts it in a locker. He told us ‘Y’all better not say sh*t either.’ He takes Lou’s toothbrush, he goes to take a sh*t, and he stirs it in his sh*t. We like “We ain’t into this sh*t, this is getting out of hand.'”
According to the story, Richardson, along with Matt Barnes, Steve Nash, and Jared Dudley, saw Amundson check into the game and use the same mouthpiece that Shaq had defiled. They tried warning him about what O’Neal had done, but Amundson rubbished their claims as nothing more than teammate banter.
However, later in the game, Richardson explained to Lou that none of the teammates were joking and that Shaq had done a lot of gross things to his personal belongings. Barnes told Amundson to throw everything in his locker room away, as O’Neal most likely had done something disgusting to all the items.
“The game happens; somehow, I’m on the bench, Matt Barnes is on the bench, Steve Nash is on the bench, and Jared Dudley is on the bench. Lou Amundson checks in the game, and he puts the mouthpiece on and everybody on the bench loses it.”
“He comes to the locker room, he takes his mouthpiece off, and someone’s like “Hey Lou, don’t use your mouthpiece, Shaq put your mouthpiece in his a**.” he said ‘Uh, no he didn’t.’ and put it back in his mouth and goes out there. The bench loses it again.”
“So Lou gets subbed out of the game, and he said ‘J-Rich, are they f**king with me? What happened?’ I said ‘Shaq took your mouthpiece and put it in his a**, bro.’ he took it out and he just looked at it. Matt Barnes said to him ‘Anything in your locker has probably been in Shaq’s a**, throw it all away.'”
Normally, pranks among teammates are quite common. But the truth is, Shaq took things too far. These are quite unsavory details and frankly, unbecoming of a man who was in his late 30s at this time. Pranks are all well and good, but if your jokes can impact the physical health and hygiene of another person, then you have gone too far.
From what we can gather, there were no long-term ramifications to Amundson’s use of his mouthpiece and toothbrush after O’Neal’s disgusting antics. So at the very least, he got away quite lucky. But under no circumstances should O’Neal have been getting away with what he did.
Shaq had a history and a penchant for pulling pranks on his teammates. Nothing in this article suggests that pranks and tomfoolery between teammates are wrong. But what O’Neal did borders on criminal, as he knowingly put another teammate’s health and personal hygiene at risk with his antics.
Luckily, these stories seem to be from a bygone era. And for the most part, Shaq has grown wiser in his post-playing career. While he is still a fun-loving prankster, we can presume that he doesn’t pull the same kind of disgusting and lewd pranks on his fellow colleagues. But what Shaq did to Amundson is not an acceptable prank by any standards.
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