Shaquille O’Neal is without a doubt one of the greatest players to ever play the game of basketball. The first-ball Hall of Famer won four championships — three with Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles Lakers and one with Pat Riley and the Miami Heat — to go along with 14 All-NBA selections, 15 All-Star selections and the 1999-2000 Most Valuable Player award.
O’Neal’s success was largely due to his absurd talent and physicality, but it was also thanks to playing for two of the greatest coaches in NBA history in Riley and Jackson. Shaq played 8.5 seasons under the two coaches, five under Jackson with the Lakers and 3.5 under Riley with the Heat. In that span he won all four of his titles, his lone MVP, had all three of his All-Defense team selections and was an All-Star all but one year.
And now with some perspective, he was able to look back on these two Hall of Fame coaches and discuss just how different the two were and which one he would prefer to play under again, via The OGs Podcast with Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller:
“I actually did my dissertation on this duality of leadership styles between humorous and seriousness. Pat was serious. All the way serious. And what I realized when I was doing my research is, you can’t be 100% one way. So I’m going to give Pat 90/10, 90% serious and 10% humorous. Phil Jackson was probably about 70/30, 70% humorous and 30% serious. Both styles can be effective but I think in the long run if you have a little bit more humor you can get more done. Pat was serious, after that first year we won, as I was celebrating he was sitting there not letting us out early saying you better get back here and get to the gym.”
Jackson was always seen as a player-friendly head coach and that much of his success was attributed to that style. He was notoriously somehow able to keep Dennis Rodman in check during his time with the Chicago Bulls and managed the O’Neal and Kobe Bryant rivalry to the tune of three championships.
And while Riley has significant success and is also one of the greatest coaches ever, he did seem to have fewer difficult situations to deal with. Riley inherited the Showtime Lakers after they had already won a championship and was a steady leader with the New York Knicks and Heat for nearly two decades.
And perhaps some players would prefer Riley’s style over Jackson’s. But for O’Neal, it makes sense that his greater successes came with L.A.
Shaquille O’Neal explains why he’s hard on centers like Rudy Gobert
Shaquille O’Neal has been known to be critical of All-NBA center Rudy Gobert and other top big men around the league. And he finally explained why he does this, and the basis for it is that he wants the ability for younger centers to continue the trend of making more and more money instead of it going to other positions in the future.
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