Shaquille O’Neal has gone down as one of the greatest players in NBA history, but there was one big weakness to his game. O’Neal was a terrible free-throw shooter, and he was asked by former NBA player Eddie House if his big hands were the reason for that on the Straight Game Podcast.
“Because I didn’t care,” O’Neal said. “I never cared. I hit ’em when I needed to hit ’em. I always said it was God’s way of keeping me humble. Just listen up. Imagine me, but shooting like Steph Curry. I’ll be the greatest ever, right? If I had all that, I’d probably be super arrogant, super disrespectful.
“So, it was just a way of keeping me humble,” O’Neal added. “Because crazy thing is when I practiced, I look like you two in the gym by myself. But in the game, it just wouldn’t [go in]. So it just got to the point that I don’t care. But when I really cared and focused, I hit ’em most of the time.”
O’Neal once called his free-throw struggles a humbling experience from the man upstairs on The Old Man and the Three podcast. While he stated here that he didn’t care, he claimed back then that he practiced the shots more than any of his moves.
O’Neal also consulted shot doctors, but still couldn’t hit free throws consistently during games. He finished his career shooting just 52.7% from the line, which is just terrible.
As was the case here as well, O’Neal has always claimed that he did make free throws when it mattered most. There are actually some instances you can point to where he did deliver.
O’Neal’s Los Angeles Lakers were down 3-2 to the Sacramento Kings in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. The big man would shoot 24-32 (75%) from the line over the next two games to help the Lakers turn things around and win in seven.
While that was a great stretch, there were others where O’Neal wasn’t able to come through. He shot just 68-182 (37.4%) from the line during the Miami Heat’s title run in 2006. O’Neal particularly struggled in the 2006 NBA Finals, going just 14-48 (29.2%) from the charity stripe.
Free throws were undoubtedly O’Neal’s Achilles heel, and he once spoke about the origin of his woes.
“The name of the school is Liberty Hill High School,” O’Neal stated. “That’s their claim to fame, they beat Shaq. And Rex, believe it or not, it was the beginning of my free-throw woes. So we play against this team, I’m in foul trouble. We come back, a couple seconds left, down by one, they foul me.
“First time I was ever nervous,” O’Neal added. “No really. All the stuff that I learned, it just went away, and then when you miss, and everybody is laughing at you, you get nervous again. So that was how I felt on the free-throw line: okay, they’re gonna laugh at me. Just give it up.”
O’Neal made up for his free-throw struggles by dominating in the other facets of the game. He averaged 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks per game for his career and walked away with four titles, three Finals MVPs, one MVP, and two scoring titles.
