Shaq finished his career as one of the greatest centers in NBA history. He was the last center to win an MVP before Nikola Jokic won it last season. His decline coincided with the decline of centers in the modern NBA. Which made his prime, against the best centers of all time, have that much more meaning.
When Shaq was drafted into the NBA in 1992, he was being put into the richest gold mine of big men the NBA had ever seen. We had the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, and David Robinson who had already established themselves as All-stars. However, what set Shaq apart from all of them was that he was a loud media presence for a very young NBA player. And that created a lot of unwanted problems for Shaq.
In the 1994 All-star game, O’Neal had a bad time. He was being targeted by the league’s best big men. Shaq scored just 2-12 from the field in a game where we usually find little to no defense. It was clear what was happening, and Shaq vowed revenge on everyone involved.
Shaq began his revenge tour against ‘the Admiral’ on March 6th, 1994, Shaq’s birthday. Shaq scored 32 points and grabbed 11 rebounds but D-Rob stole the spotlight from the birthday boy. David Robinson had a stat line of 36 points, 13 rebounds, 7 assists, 6 blocks, and 3 steals. It was clear that this was personal to Robinson.
How Shaq contributed to David Robinson’s highest-scoring game
Shaq and David were polar opposite personalities. O’Neal was loud and attention-grabbing while David Robinson was soft and charitable. It created a good vs bad guy image in the media.
David Robinson was tired of being compared and put in a conversation with Shaq, “Everyone is so concerned about his feelings…Why should I lose sleep over what he thinks?….. Who is Shaq anyway?”
This set up the greatest scoring game in Spurs’ history. On the last day of the 1994 regular season, Shaq was leading the NBA in points per game with David Robinson trailing him. Shaquille O’Neal had a 33 point lead going into the last game of the season and it looked unlikely that D Rob could snatch away Shaq’s first scoring title.
However, the game was insignificant for the Spurs and everyone in attendance knew that Robinson would have to have a huge game to win against Shaquille. The Spurs team fed Robinson the ball over and over again. He scored 71 points on a 53.4% usage rate which not only set his career-high and a Spurs franchise record but also gave him the 1994 scoring title.
The game was a blowout and Robinson had no reason to be in the game. However, his big scoring game came out of pure beef and spite against Shaq. O’Neal was extremely mad seeing this unfold.
“They ran every play for him. If I hadn’t been triple-teamed and was selfish and tried to score every time I touched the ball, I could have scored 70, too.”
Shaq’s lie tarnished David Robinson’s image
However, after this game, the beef died down a bit. During that time their career of Shaq took off. He became the best center in the NBA and took his talents to LA. But David Robinson saw a couple of good seasons before he eventually got injured and then became the 2nd best player behind a young Tim Duncan.
Between the 1998-99 season and 2004-05 season, the Spurs and the Lakers shared the dominance of the NBA. With the Spurs winning in 98-99, 02-03, and 04-05 whilst the Lakers won in 99-00, 00-01, 01-02. The headline of those games evolved to Duncan vs Shaq rather than Robinson. However, even though he was out of the picture, Shaq kept targeting Robinson.
Shaq lied and said that when he was a child, David Robinson refused to give him an autograph and that’s what motivated him to go hard in this beef. This tainted the perfect image of Robinson.
However, years later after retiring, Shaq confessed and said that it was all a lie he made up to give him more of a reason to go hard against the Spurs. He apologized to the Admiral which showed a clear sign of the beef coming to an end.
At the end of the day, both these players had immense respect for each other. And this beef helped Shaquille O’Neal become the most dominant player in NBA history.