Shaquille O’Neal says if it were acceptable to form a superteam during his time in the league, he would have signed with the Chicago Bulls to play alongside Michael Jordan. On an episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq, O’Neal explained how the league is different now compared to back in his day.
“If we knew that was acceptable, probably a lot of us would have switched up,” O’Neal said. “If I knew that was acceptable I would have just went to Chicago. If I knew that was acceptable, I would have went and played with the Spurs. If I knew that was okay I would have went and played with a team that was almost there, like Utah.”
The 51-year-old says his mindset and the prevalent one at the time was that you had to stay and find a way to win.
“We always thought like, ‘No, you’re the man. You the guy. You gotta get it done. You gotta say, you gotta make trades, you got to do this. You can’t (leave)’ And I think he (Kevin Durant) did it before it was acceptable,” O’Neal continued. “It’s acceptable now, people just ‘I want to go here, I want to do this. Oh hey, you play on this team, you play on this team, let’s get on this team and create a Big Three. But again, if I knew that was acceptable, I just would have went and played with Mike.”
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O’Neal’s critics might point to the fact that he did leave the Orlando Magic, who had selected him with the first pick of the 1992 NBA Draft, for the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency in 1996. Whether the actual reason was money or whatever else, he didn’t go to a star-studded team at the end of the day.
The Lakers didn’t have a star at the time, and it just so happened that Kobe Bryant, who was drafted in 1996, blossomed into one later on. O’Neal couldn’t have known that Bryant would turn out to be that good and there would have been better options for him if he wanted to win.
O’Neal could have just gone to Jordan and the Bulls, who were the reigning champions, had it been acceptable to do so. With him and Jordan leading the way, the Bulls would have wiped the floor with everyone else and fortunately, they never teamed up.
Shaquille O’Neal Revealed The Two Teams He Would Have Joined If He Wanted To Make A Superteam
This is not the first time that the Hall of Famer has brought up the Bulls or the Spurs when talking about this subject. O’Neal chose them as the teams he would have joined if he wanted to make a super team.
“So, it’s supposed to be about competition. If I knew it was okay to join people, f*** I would have joined the Bulls,” Shaq said on The Big Podcast.
“I would have played with Mike (Jordan) and Scottie (Pippen) and then I would have left them and played in my hometown San Antonio with the Spurs. But, nah, I was like, nope. I want to beat all these guys.”
O’Neal ended up winning four championships in his career, but he would have won a lot more had he gone this route. He and Tim Duncan on the same team would have been perhaps an equally terrifying sight as him and Jordan being together. While it would have been a special sight, I am glad it never happened.
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