Shareef O’Neal is doing everything he can to prove he has what the NBA needs.
Although not unknown until high school, Shaquille O’Neal as a teenager was extremely futuristic.
At 6 feet 11 inches and 240 pounds, he is a super-spec size, and every action is full of explosiveness and shock, dunking, blocking, rebounding, and even dribbling fast breaks, although Shaquille O’Neal is burly and agile. , playing like a bully, but off the court and being friendly like a puppy, everything involuntarily attracts the attention of the audience.
Whether it’s fans or pundits in the media, everyone knows that Shaquille O’Neal is about to rise up in the NBA and have a place in history.
But Shareef O’Neal took a different path.
Shareef O’Neal has been quite famous since childhood because of his father. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in California as a 4-star high school student, ranked 33rd in the country, and committed to playing at the University of Arizona.
Although unlike his father’s amazing talent, Shareef O’Neal is also on the verge of joining a Division I school and earning a chance to show himself to the NBA. However, a bribery scandal broke out at the University of Arizona, so Shareef O’Neal decided to transfer to his hometown UCLA to play.
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However, Shareef O’Neal fell into the biggest obstacle in his career before he could develop. He felt unwell during an exercise. After examination, it was found that he was a patient with congenital heart disease with abnormal coronary arteries. High-collision basketball players are still quite dangerous. In the end, Shareef O’Neal decided to take the plunge and missed the entire 2018-19 season, returning in November 2019 after a full year of rehab, but not as well as expected.
Shareef decided to start all over again, transferring from UCLA to Louisiana State University (LSU), his father’s former alma mater, in 2020, looking forward to starting again and getting more playing time. However, Shareef’s performance was relatively flat, and he stopped and stopped because of a foot injury, and he did not gain the trust of the coach. He averaged only 2.8 points in 11.4 minutes per game.
Originally, Shareef O’Neal planned to transfer to a school with more opportunities after the 2021-22 season, and Shaq also supported his son’s decision, “Wherever he goes, I support him. He is very unlucky, college ball. The team didn’t take good care of him either, and I really hope he has a better chance.”
Shareef, however, decided to go straight to the 2022 NBA draft, a decision that Shaquille is said to not support. Shareef said he disagreed with his father during a pre-draft workout with the Lakers. “We had some arguments. He wanted me to stay at school, but I wanted to challenge myself,” Shareef said. “He didn’t want to hear what I said, but I’m sorry. , we are all adults, we will pass.”
Shareef believes that his father’s state is completely different from his own. “He didn’t have to undergo any trial training before the draft, and he became the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.” Shareef’s chance to play in summer league.
Shareef’s summer league numbers were similar to those in college, averaging 4.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 44.4 percent shooting in 11.5 minutes per game in four games. Converting to per36 is not bad, but it has little meaning and reference in the evaluation of NBA standards. After all, most of the main players in the summer league may not be in the NBA’s main rotation.
Shareef currently looks like the best possible average basketball player (summer league standards), but doesn’t yet have the ability to handle the tempo and physicality of a professional game. But from another point of view, Shareef has hardly played steadily and played high-intensity games, and has undergone heart surgery and foot injuries. This state is understandable. And in the game, Shareef has been assessed as a top athletic ability in the past.
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At the moment, Shareef doesn’t have the perimeter, and has some mid-to-long-range shots, but it’s clearly still a very, very long way from what Shaq described in podacst as “Giannis who can shoot the jumper.”
In other words, Shareef is still very far from the NBA, but at least it’s a big step forward in summer league.
“I haven’t had a lot of opportunities since high school, and summer league is probably the longest high-intensity game I’ve ever played,” Shareef said. “I’d love to be able to play basketball consistently and freely.”
The summer league is a long-lost practice and study for Shareef. “I learned a lot on the court, and every day I feel like I can do better.” Especially the Lakers also have some dedicated analysts and coaches to assist Shareef, so that He knows more about the game and the way he trains.
In the game against the Hornets, it’s hard not to notice Shaquille’s absence when Scottie Pippen, the father of another well-known second on the team, Scottie Pippen Jr., was on the court.
However, Shareef didn’t care much, because his family was the biggest support and support in recent years, including his sister, who was a staff member of the summer league, and cheered for his brother almost every scene. “Our family is very close. When I was hospitalized after surgery, They were the ones who stayed with me through my worst times,” Shareef said. “As anyone who knows us knows, my family is what drives me.”
Shareef’s absence from Shaq is also uncertain as to the reason. He interpreted it as a “quasi-protest”. From fully supporting leaving LSU, to opposing his career, and missing his son’s debut game, Shaq chose to keep his distance from Shareef, who was heading for the NBA.
Perhaps this is not a bad thing, Shaq’s talent gives him more career options and media exposure, and he may really not understand how Shareef is so far from the NBA how to develop upwards. As a result, Shaq chose to keep his distance and let Shareef go, less connected to his father, but to break his own path, and look at the episode with Scottie Pippen showing up to support, the contrast between father and son can have a negative impact. .
With the end of the summer league, Shareef’s contract with the Lakers also ended, but the Lakers have the opportunity to sign Shareef with the G-League contract in the future, if he can get back his high school skills (it was evaluated as around the second round at the time), especially his athletic ability , Let’s not talk about Antetokounmpo with projection, as long as there is 60% of the current Antetokounmpo, he may have the opportunity to write his own story. Although it is not as magnificent as his father, it will be more inspirational.
But at least Shareef has to thank his father. Because of the talent inherited from the blood, including height and jumping ability, as well as the opportunities given by the Lakers in the past, Shareef has been luckier than most.
Shaq must want to see his son succeed in the NBA, pass on the basketball family and write his own story.
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