Shaquille O’Neal is hours away from receiving the greatest honor of his basketball career. The Big Fella is about to be enshrined into the Hall of Fame. But before receiving this lifetime honor, Shaq had to earn it.
Perhaps no one helped Shaq reach this point in his career more than Phil Jackson. Jackson coached the star center on the Lakers leading him and the rest of the team to three consecutive championships.
Jackson recently penned a piece for The Players’ Tribune detailing some of his relationship with Shaq.
Phil first wrote about meeting Shaq for the first time in Montana ahead of his joining the Lakers:
I got delayed with business that day and Shaq got to my house a few hours before I did. When I finally showed up, Shaq had made himself at home. The people in my lake community were all on their docks watching this guy do his thing. Neighbors told me he had been jumping on a kid’s trampoline and then he had commandeered somebody else’s WaveRunner and was doing big jumps. Shaq was putting on a show. Later, I got him to help me move a big piece of wood — a deadhead log — that was submerged in the bay.
Jackson also wrote about coaching one of the most dominant players of all time, from challenging him to be well-conditioned to inspiring him with literature:
In the first week of the 1999–2000 season, I stopped him coming off the floor during a timeout and asked him: “What do you think was Wilt’s greatest accomplishment?” He quickly and confidently replied: “Averaging 50 points and 30 rebounds a game.”
I shook my head.
“Nope, he averaged over 48 minutes a game. Do you think you could do that?”
Walking out of the timeout huddle, he looked back at me.
“He could do it. So can I.”
So I played him 48 minutes a game until he called uncle, which wasn’t that many games into November. But he didn’t want to come to my office to tell me, so he sent John Salley as his spokesperson. I was glad to comply, as I didn’t expect this experiment to last the whole year. That wasn’t the point. We never spoke another word about it. It did, however, get him in great condition. By season’s end, he was the MVP.
[…]The next year, the book I chose for him was Siddhartha, the novel by Hermann Hesse about a man on a journey to find himself. It’s loosely based on the life of Buddha. When I handed out the books on a flight at the start of a long road trip, I told the team — with tongue in cheek — that I expected a book report by the end of the trip. This particular trip ended in Chicago with a game against the Bulls, from which Shaq got ejected. Rather than wait and face the press, he went straight to the bus. After the press conference, I got on the bus and found Shaq there, reading Siddhartha. On the flight home, he came back to my seat and gave me his book report — still the only one I ever received. It said: “Siddhartha is a book about a young prince, who has money, fame, and women, just like me. He is also searching for self-discovery, just like I am.”
The relationship between Jackson and Shaq helped create one of the most powerful dynasties of all time. Now, the player on the court is being rewarded once again with a Hall of Fame enshrinement. His former head coach seems to be just as proud.
