Longtime NBA center and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal is considered to be among the best players the league has ever seen. A 23.7 points-per-game scorer and 10.9 rebound-per-game board getter over the course of his career, "The Big Aristotle" was elected to 15 All-Star Games, named a First-Team All-NBA player eight times, won four NBA titles, and was named NBA Finals MVP three times.
Needless to say, he should absolutely be in consideration for just about everybody's hypothetical "Mount Rushmore" of big men to touch the hardwood.
Speaking of said hypothetical, when asked to relay his own "Big Man Mount Rushmore" in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Shaq had a notable omission from his list—himself.
"Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], Wilt [Chamberlain], Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon," he answered without hesitation.
It's unclear if the 53-year-old purposely left himself off the list, but either way, he has plenty of competition at the top of the leaderboard. We still haven't even mentioned Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Moses Malone, or Dirk Nowitzki.
What Shaq is undoubtedly a part of, however, is the Mount Rushmore of NBA analysts. Alongside his mountain mates Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley, O'Neal will once again grace your television sets next season with ESPN's version of Inside the NBA—and he's pretty fired up about it. O'Neal is also at the center of a candid new Netflix documentary series, Power Moves with Shaquille O'Neal, in which he and Allen Iverson work to revive Reebok's legacy and find a rising star to rep the brand.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Shaquille O'Neal Left a Surprising Player Off His Big Man Mount Rushmore.
