Shareef O’Neal’s long and winding road is just getting started

Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty ImagesDespite his unheralded status as he neared his high school graduation, the lucky few who’d had a chance to watch a teenage Shaquille O’Neal play basketball knew that they were witnessing something special.

In the words of The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn:

O’Neal was now nearly 6-11 and 240 pounds. Everything he did was radioactive and violent. The dunks. The blocks. He grabbed rebounds and dribbled the length of the floor. He was massive but played with enviable dexterity. He looked like a bully but smiled like a puppy. Throughout the gym, butts slid forward on bleachers.

To novices and experts alike, Shaq’s rising NBA stardom was unquestionably inevitable.

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