TORONTO — Shaquille O'Neal was only 9 years old when his stepfather began teaching him basketball with a plan to dominate like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Young Shaquille didn't even know who they were.
Now he's on the verge of joining them in basketball immortality.
"He told me this day would happen and I never believed him," O'Neal said of Phillip Harrison, who raised Shaq along with his mother and died in 2013.
O'Neal was chosen Friday as a finalist for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, joining Allen Iverson to highlight the potential class.