Shaquille O’Neal was arguably one of the most dominant basketball players to ever step onto the hardwood. O’Neal was a physical beast that we hadn’t ever seen before in the NBA, as he had great movement to go with his massive 300+ pound frame. In that era of NBA’s physicality, Shaq was basically unstoppable.
The only way to stop Shaq was to send him to the free-throw line, where he struggled his entire career. It seems he has stopped struggling in that regard now, over a decade after his retirement. Shaq sank a free throw on the TNT set and reminded everyone that he was a 50% shooter from the line, and then shared the clip on Twitter to talk trash to Candace Parker.
As a wise woman once said “take the surprise out your voice” @Candace_Parker pic.twitter.com/2xX2nKZRMx
— SHAQ (@SHAQ) October 17, 2022
TNT announced that the entirety of the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew had their contracts extended by the network, which means the show will continue for many more years with Shaq, Charles Barkley, Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith, and Ernie Johnson.
Shaquille O’Neal’s Free Throw Struggles
There’s a reason O’Neal had a relatively emphatic celebration after making a simple free throw. Throughout his career, Shaq had a glaring hole in his game with his free throw inconsistency. Opposing defenses came up with the ‘Hack-A-Shaq’, which meant that players will just foul O’Neal when he was trying to finish at the rim.
Shaq was a relatively strong free throw shooter in clutch time situations, as he often went to the line late in playoff games. For his career, Shaq shot 52.7% from the line meaning he basically made one for every free throw he missed. It stands for 5935 made free throws out of 11252 attempts.
Shaq could have been as high as 2nd on the all-time scoring list if he was a good free throw shooter. However, his lack of charity stripe shooting didn’t stop him from being a league MVP, winning 3 consecutive Finals MVPs, and winning 4 championships.
