Shaquille O'Neal's Hall of Fame Speech Gives Credit to a Former Illini
The Basketball Hall of Fame enshrined some legendary players, coaches, and overall impactful people to the game on Friday night.
There was a total of six basketball icons selected for the Basketball Hall of Fame including Allen Iverson, Yao Ming, Sheryl Swoopes, Tom Izzo, Jerry Reinsdorf, and Shaquille O’Neal.
All of these great basketball personalities deserved to get into the Hall of Fame because of the impact they had on basketball, players, and how the game is played.
I am happy for Izzo, despite dominating Illinois year in and year out. He has been one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all-time.
Growing up I remember watching Swoopes in the playoffs with the Houston Comets. She was such a great player and helped develop the game of basketball to what we see today.
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Jerry Reinsdorf was the architect of the greatest run in any professional sports league. He built the Chicago Bulls into a powerhouse team that no one could stop.
Yao Ming was a great ambassador of the game from China. He came over to the United States and actually was a really good player. It was fun to watch him for the short career in the NBA.
One highlight I will always have in my head is Allen Iverson doing a shimmy and then draining a huge three-pointer in the NBA Finals to help beat the Lakers. He was a player who revolutionized the game.
And then we get to Shaquille O’Neal. What could we all say but, wow? He was one of the best ever and one of the biggest powerhouse players in the NBA.
During Shaq’s Hall of Fame speech he gave credit to a lot of different people and then at the 13:23 mark in the speech he decided to give credit to a former Illinois basketball player.
Shaq ended up giving credit to Illini great Nick Anderson, but usually, credit is a good thing in an NBA Hall of Fame speech.
This credit was more of a ‘rib’ to Anderson. Shaq clearly has a love for Anderson but he gave him credit for missing four crucial free throws in his first NBA Finals.
Anderson missed four huge free throws which were the nail in the coffin for the Magic in the first game of the NBA Finals in 1995. The Magic ended up losing the series 0-4.
Shaq ended his ribbing of Anderson by saying that he had to add that in there because he thought it would be funny if a terrible free throw shooter made fun of a bad one.
This was a great NBA Hall of Fame speech by Shaq. He was a legend and will never be duplicated in the NBA.
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