Shaq became so accustomed to dominating on the court that he felt lost once his abilities finally started to fade.
The big fella played well beyond his prime, and in his final season in 2010-11, he averaged just 9.2 points per game for the Boston Celtics.
In a new episode of JJ Redick’s podcast, ‘The Old Man and the Three’, O’Neal opened up about the hardest part of his prime years coming to an end.
“Not being ‘him’,” he said. “‘Him’ is 28/10. F****n’ averaged nine points in Boston. I felt like I was robbing the people. I felt so bad that when they called me back and said, ‘Hey man, we owe you $1.5 [million].’ I said f*****g keep it. Keep it. I’m not coming up there to average six points… I was dominant for so long, I never even thought about, ‘Hey one day, it’s going to be gone.’
” … It first hit me when I didn’t make the All Star team. I had that like ‘oh I don’t want to play,’ but I’m like bro, I dominated the All Star game for 12-13 years in a row. Now I don’t even get no f*****g votes. So that part kind of kind of messed me up.”
Shaq added that his past achievements were of little comfort for him at the time, because in his words, he was “programmed to do more.”
At the height of his powers, Shaq was unbelievably dominant.
In his best-ever season, he put up 29.7 points and 13.6 rebounds per game, winning league MVP, Finals MVP and the championship.
It was the first of three consecutive titles that he won alongside Kobe Bryant at the Lakers.
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