Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest big men to have ever played in the NBA, having won an MVP award to go with 4 championships and 3 Finals MVPs. He also ended his career with 28,596 points, which ranks in the top 10 all-time, and few in NBA history can stake their claim to have been better than Shaq.
One who can definitely stake that claim though, is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points. Kareem is arguably the greatest player of all time and Shaq recently stated during an interview with Marca that Kareem was a big inspiration for him.
via Marca:
Q: Which player was a big inspiration to you on the court?
A: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was always a big inspiration to me. Not only because he was a Laker, but he was also one of the biggest, strongest, craziest power forwards that played in that time period. I watched him, I learned from him but, to be honest, I probably talked to Kareem a total of three minutes while he was in the league. It would be interesting to study how many times you show respect on the court and don’t do the same verbally. He was a unique and unrepeatable player.
There will never be another Kareem, as Shaq stated, and while we listed down the highlights of the latter’s resume, it still pales in comparison. Abdul-Jabbar won a record 6 MVP awards to go with 6 championships and 2 Finals MVPs. He dominated the NBA for over a decade and deservedly ranks in the estimation of many as, at worst, a top 3 player of all-time.
O’Neal also spoke about Stephen Curry and the Warriors during the interview, as he called Steph the ‘biggest problem’ in the NBA right now and said he always believed that the Warriors would end up winning it all this past season.
