CHRIS ANSTEY still remembers the chilling words: ‘Get in … let’s see how you go on Shaq’. It was just his sixth NBA game and things did not go well.
“Who is the toughest player you ever played against?”
It remains the question I am most often asked when I talk basketball. I’ve always been able to answer it in one word.
Shaq.
I was five games into my NBA career with the Dallas Mavericks and held a 3-2 record after getting a look at Vancouver twice, Seattle, Portland and Charlotte in what was a reasonably soft introduction to the league. On November 11, 1997, that all changed when Shaquille O’Neal and the Los Angeles Lakers rolled into town.
Being seven-foot tall, weighing 113kg and having spent the past four years in the NBL working tirelessly on my strength and skill, I had grown confident in my ability to get to spots and finish against almost any player in the league. There were very few players who had the size to change what I wanted to do, and those who did were not the most skilled players Australia had to offer. I considered myself big and talented.
Until I encountered Shaq.
Shaq measured in at 7’1” and 150kg, and as such, my playing services were only required for 38 seconds in the first half of what was fast becoming a blowout loss. While I didn’t bother the statisticians in my brief appearance on court, coach Jim Cleamons ensured I avoided Shaq as he took a short rest on the bench.
We trailed 82-63 with two minutes remaining in the third quarter and with the result almost a foregone conclusion, Coach Cleamons looked down the bench and called out the most intimidating words I’d heard in my brief NBA career: “Chris, get in for Samaki. Let’s see how you go on Shaq for a few minutes.”
I lasted seven seconds.
Lakers guard Nick Van Exel, no doubt finding humour in seeing a skinny Australian kid putting every ounce of his strength into moving Shaq off the block, threw the ball my way. Shaq’s giant right hand enveloped the ball on the catch. He brought his left hand to the ball, elbows out, ready to go. I’m sure they both smiled.
BOOM! Shaq took a dribble as he leveraged his hips and shoulders into my chest. It felt like I had been hit by a truck. I backed up a step and braced again. BOOM! A second dribble, and second hit. As hard as I fought, it was useless. As I pushed back with all my strength, the truck spun. Fast. So fast that I didn’t see Shaq’s right elbow, mid spin, heading toward my right eye as he made his way towards the rim.
What I did see, as I fell to the floor, was my biggest and strongest teammate Kurt Thomas arriving to bear hug Shaq to avoid the easiest dunk he would have ever had. I heard the referee’s whistle that would signal both Thomas’ foul and the end of my first experience playing against Shaquille O’Neal.
Our trainer ran onto the court with a towel and placed it across my right cheekbone to stem the bleeding, and we headed towards the locker room to take care of my 3cm cut, which would require five staples.
I glanced across at the court as I departed and took a little solace in watching Shaq miss one of his free throws. He would end up with 37 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks as his Lakers cruised to a 118-96 victory, while I filled my stat line with zeros.
Throughout my three years in the NBA, I experienced the full force of the Shaq Truck a handful of times. Battered from just a few minutes of ‘defending’ Shaq each time, I shifted, knocked down and dunked on. The few times he didn’t score on me were usually the ones we ran half my team at us to help, and we watched helplessly as he would defer to Kobe Bryant, who was just as dominant.
Shaq had the strength and mass to shift defenders towards the rim at will, the physical ability to hold the basketball in one hand and the athleticism to own the space three feet above the rim in every direction. He dunked with such ferocious power that it was impossible to defend once he got there. What many people forget is that Shaq ran the floor like a gazelle in his younger years.
Before Steph Curry changed the game of basketball with his ability to shoot the three from deeper than anyone had ever dared, Shaq changed the game by being impossible to guard in the paint.
I was a part of the game when my Dallas Mavericks coach, Don Nelson, first employed the famous ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ defensive strategy.
Interestingly, we first used it as a strategy when we played the Chicago Bulls, fouling Dennis Rodman in the same manner. It meant that Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen didn’t get to beat us all game. My teammate Bubba Wells still holds the record for the fastest player to foul out in NBA history, accumulating his six fouls on Rodman in just two minutes and 43 seconds. Rodman made 11 of his 16 free throws for the game and we lost by just six points. It was enough to convince Nelson that the strategy worked.
So, when the Lakers were in the penalty, one of us would foul Shaq and send him to the free throw line before he even crossed half-court. Nelson reasoned that we should have enough fouls to give with our least skilled players that we wouldn’t all foul out, and that we would live with any free throws Shaq made. It was a much better result than having to guard him.
Many teams employed the Hack-a-Shaq technique against their opposition’s worst free throw shooter for years, until leagues around the world put a stop to the ugly spectacle it created by penalising deliberate non-basketball fouls, allowing the offensive team to retain possession of the ball after they shot their penalty free throws.
The most fun I ever had defending Shaq was in a series of scrimmages while he was in Melbourne to open the All-Star Café in the late 1990s. He chose his moments to dominate but allowed me the opportunity to guard him while he talked to me about what he was doing. We all got to see the big kid and the caring person that lived inside Shaq when he stepped away from the spotlight.
Shaq was the biggest, most powerful, most athletic big I’ve ever played against. In his prime, he was impossible to guard one-on-one. On court, he was a monster, who loved nothing better than physically dominating opponents. If he had ever been able to master the art of free throw shooting, which averaged 52.7 per cent over his NBA career, Shaquille O’Neal may very well have been right in the conversation as the greatest of all time.
As the custom rims and stitched leather seats in his SUV suggested – and perhaps also the kryptonite that was his free throw shooting – Shaq really was Superman.
Chris Anstey is a former professional basketball player who played in the NBA, Russia, Spain and domestically in the NBL, as well as at the Olympics for the Australian Boomers. He started his career in 1994 for the Melbourne Tigers and had stints for the Dallas Mavericks and Chicago Bulls. After finishing up his playing career in 2010, he coached the Melbourne Tigers and United from 2012-2014. He won two NBL MVP awards and was the Gaze Medal winner in 2002. He has had a stellar media career since retirement and has a unique insight into the world of basketball both in Australia and overseas.
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