Shaquille O’Neal has said many things in his legendary and illustrious career, but some of them are just groundbreaking revelations. There was a time when he revealed that he would have joined the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan if it were possible back then, in the 90s.
While discussing Kevin Durant’s situation when he became a free agent a few years ago, Shaq stated that if he had known it was acceptable to join super teams in the 1990s, he would have joined the Bulls.
Shaq O’Neal: “If I knew it was okay to join people, I would’ve joined the [Chicago] #Bulls”
They’d have 12+ #NBA championships 💯 pic.twitter.com/q5ll9YFxXP
— Die-Hard Chicago Bulls Fans (@DieHardCBfans) November 25, 2023
“If I had known it was okay to join people, I would have joined the Bulls,” the big man said. If only he had joined Jordan and Scottie in the Bulls, he could have gathered many more titles. Shaq had immense respect for Jordan, and so did Michael for the big man. Shaq also went on to say, “But, Nah, I was like, nope. I want to beat all these guys,” which seems reason enough for the Diesel to not join MJ and Scottie Pippen.
Shaquille O’Neal wanted to form a superteam with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls
Shaq stated that if he had known it was okay to join super teams in the 1990s, he would have joined the Bulls and then stated one sole reason for not doing so as his will to actually defeat them. Imagine a super team that might have won even more titles and dominated the league in the late 1990s. The NBA would have been ruined if Shaq had signed with the Bulls.
The four-time NBA champion has frequently vented about his desire to defeat the other elite players in the game rather than teaming up with them in an effort to capture what some, including Shaq, would consider to be cheesy titles. Frankly, it’s a lot of fun to imagine Shaq and Michael Jordan playing together.
When “The Big Aristotle” got the chance to play with Kobe Bryant, a man who was often dubbed as a replica of Michael Jordan, they had tremendous success and shared three titles. Thus, one can only speculate about how powerful Shaq and Jordan together would be.
Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal’s bond explained
Shaq was unable to overcome the hump, and his team was swept several times in the next few years. Michael Jordan, his ‘fraternity brother’ (as he once revealed), had given him some guidance during one of these defeats that was useful to him years later. For Shaq, who won three titles in a row with the Los Angeles Lakers (2000-02) and a last one with the Miami Heat (2006), everything worked out great.
“Michael was special. I’m just happy that I can tell my children, if I have them, that their daddy had the opportunity to play one season against the great Michael Jordan,” Shaq once said. Jordan and Shaq faced off 20 times during their careers. Although Shaq did defeat Jordan in one playoff series, Jordan prevailed in 11 of the 20 games. Shaq defeated Jordan in a 1993 regular-season game in addition to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 1995.