Shaquille O’Neal has been called a lot of names during his career: “Big Aristotle,” “Most Dominant Ever,” “Diesel,” and many others. The unique thing about Shaquille O’Neal is that he gave himself these nicknames and many others, often outwitting the journalists who write about him with his playful and jocular personality, which is one of a kind. The Shaquille O’Neal life has had a one-of-a-kind trajectory from military high school to the NBA to his affinity for being a volunteer sheriff. Shaquille O’Neal basketball is also unique: a dominant center who developed a mighty drop-step move which often ended in a slam dunk.

We’ve seen him many times, his larger-than-life face displayed on the electronic scoreboards, basketball has never been the same. We now feel like we personally know each player.

Shaquille O’Neal was brought up by his mother and his military stepfather (whom he calls “the Sarge”), moving frequently as the military dictated. He attended Louisiana State University for two years and was twice named an All-American and was voted the NCAA men’s basketball player of the year in 1991. He left LSU early to be drafted as the number one pick in the NBA Draft in 1992. The Orlando Magic was a recent expansion team before they drafted Shaq and he quickly turned their fortunes for the better, barely missing the playoffs during his rookie campaign. He was voted Rookie of the Year after averaging 23.4 points and 13.9 rebounds. The next season, the Magic drafted “Penny” Hardaway, a high scoring guard who helped Shaq and the Magic dramatically improve.

The following year, Shaquille O’Neal basketball year three, he led the league in scoring and brought them to the NBA Finals to face the Houston Rockets and to play against his idol, center Hakeem Olajuwon. Hakeem outplayed Shaq in the series and Houston won its second title in two years. The Magic floundered the next season and Shaq exited, after being wooed by Jerry West and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Shaquille O’Neal signed a huge contract with the Lakers, who had been irrelevant after the decline of the showtime Lakers from the prior decade. But that was about to change with the arrival of Shaquille O’Neal basketball. With a few teams and coaches that could not quite get past the Western Conference Finals, despite their obvious depth which included a young Kobe Bryant, the Lakers broke through in 1999–their first year with new coach Phil Jackson. They captured their first NBA title that year and added two more in successive years before losing in the finals to the Pistons in 2004. That season was marked by constant strife between Bryant, Shaq and Jackson and after it ended, the Lakers sent everyone but Bryant packing.

Although the Shaquille O’Neal life would include another NBA title with Dwayne Wade and the Miami Heat, it was during his Lakers’ years that Shaq proved himself to be possibly the best center to ever play. He averaged better than 30 points in two of the playoff years to go along with 15 rebounds and was the centerpiece which every opposing team had to deal with.