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By Joël Pütz | Sports journalist
A true phenomenon when he arrived in the League in the early 90s, Shaquille O'Neal had quickly impressed his peers by his extraordinary power. Michael Jordan even admitted that he was intimidated by Big Man, up to an incident.
With its 150 kilos and its legendary power, Shaquille O'Neal was not really the type to be easily intimidated. Capable of destroying any opposing racket during its best years, the pivot has established itself as one of the most dominant players of all time. Which did not prevent him from looking down in front of one of his peers, as the Hall of Famer had told Logan Paul in 2022:
For me the greatest player in history is Michael Jordan (…) He is the only man who terrified me on the field. I admired it when I was in high school, I admired it when I was at university, and there he is there, right in front of you. And all the things you see him do on posters, he does them in real life. He passed in front of me so quickly, I watched him pass and I said to myself “oh shit”. Mike? Yeah I was terrified.
Once the nervousness has come down, I had to go into “karate” mode. In all karate films, the student must overcome the master. And I won a lot of bets by asking people who is the last guy to have beaten Michael Jordan in Playoffs. It was me.
And yes, it was the Big Diesel and his Magic team that had released the Bulls during the 1995 playoffs, just a few months after the return to his Airness competition.
Shaquille O'Neal too nice according to Michael Jordan
Interestingly, this feeling of fear was quite reciprocal when n ° 23 came out of his first retirement. Ultra-mobile for a player at his post and capable of moving anyone under the circle, Shaq represented a puzzle for his opponents. Jordan thus confided in the podcast Icon’s Club Let the colossus intimidated him a little … until a specific incident which would have opened his eyes to the Big Man:
I didn't really know how to play against him. Do I go over it? Do I stop and draw? Blah, bla, bla. So I rushed on him and he dropped me directly on the ground, then he lowered himself to get me up. I said, “No, he didn't want to do that, he's a nice boy. If he had left me, if he had spanned me, as at the old school, I would have been a little afraid.
But his heart is too good. It is not its genre. This removed part of the intimidation factor.
Shaq could get confused with his opponents and distribute punches on the ground, we also have images to prove it. But being the big aristote not being mean by nature, its faults therefore did not necessarily have to hurt the others. A flaw that MJ quickly identified and that he used to his advantage, no longer being afraid of rubbing the Orlando star under the basket.
Michael Jordan was just coming back from his first retirement, he therefore apprehended to have to face Shaquille O'Neal in the racket. Until the latter proves to him that he was too nice to want to harm him, enough to put him in confidence immediately.
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