LAS VEGAS — Sensing that five-star forward Shareef O’Neal might fear going strong to the basket, his father took care of that issue recently.
Shaq just planted himself in front of the basket one day. Then he dared his son to dunk over him.
“Usually if I go up against a guy I’ll double pump or try to go around him,” Shareef said. “But he just told me to go straight up with it. He was like, ‘Just try to jump over me.’ ”
So Shareef did, eventually. The proof is all over social media.
“It took me a couple of times but I finally got it after a while,” Shareef said.
He posted video of the moment on Instagram, posting that “trying to dunk over my dad is actually very hard,” and attaching a laughing emoji. The video has been viewed over 300,000 times. A number of media outlets, including USA Today, CBS Sports and Fox Sports, picked it up.
If the younger O’Neal’s life wasn’t already in the spotlight enough as the son of a soon-to-be-enshrined NBA Hall of Famer, it was even more so now.
“I didn’t know it was gonna get that many views,” Shareef said. “That kind of blew it all up, and that kind of made the pressure more. My games started getting more packed because they hear Shaq’s son is playing.
“But it’s not hard. When I see a lot of people I just try to eat it up and try to play as hard as I can to show what I can do. The pressure used to bother me.”
The younger O’Neal said he struggled with his shot during a Las Vegas Classic game on Thursday evening at Liberty High School, but he showed athleticism and versatility for his size, making it obvious why Arizona and many other top programs are recruiting him out of Los Angeles as he enters his junior year of high school.
While Shareef may be able to dunk over his 7-foot-1-inch father, he isn’t Shaq. He’s an athletic forward/center who can create mismatches. At 6-9, he still may be growing, too.
“A lot of people say I’m a way different player than he is,” Shareef said. “My dad calls me a stretch four or five. I need to work on my post game more but I say my outside game is pretty solid. I can run the floor pretty well. I’m kind of an all-around player.
“Sometimes I can do the post depending on who’s guarding me. If it’s a way bigger player I can take them out and kind of expose the speed differential, but if it’s a little guy I’ll take him in the post and try to just work from there because it’s easy buckets. … That’s what my dad tells me all the time.”
While they are different in game, father and son have grown closer as Shareef’s game evolves and Shaq’s time opens up. Shareef said Shaq watched his first Las Vegas Classic game in person before heading to Germany for work obligations.
That’s the kind of contact they have more and more often.
“I was glad he came out for the day,” Shareef said. “It made me happy and kind of brought my spirits up.
“He bought a house in California, so I’m out there a lot working out with him. (Earlier) he was always working and playing basketball so I didn’t have a chance, and this year he was working on TNT during the season, but whenever he could, he’d come to town and work me out.
“I like working out with him because he knows what he’s talking about because he went though all the stuff that I’ve been through. We work out way more than we used to.”
Shaq has become a sort of secondary coach to the ones his son has had with both the well-regarded Cal Supreme club and at Windward Academy. Shareef is transferring to Santa Monica Crossroads next season.
Dad has also weighed in on his son’s recruitment, saying on his podcast last month that he wanted Shareef to play for a college coach who will “teach him next-level stuff” and “curse him out, treat him like a man.”
Shaq recommended Kentucky’s John Calipari, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and LSU’s Johnny Jones, but Shareef said he remains open and feels no pressure to play for LSU, where his father starred.
Moreover, Shareef said he likes Arizona and is “like a cousin” to former UA walk-on Quentin Crawford, whose father has been Shaq’s bodyguard and longtime close friend.
“I’m interested in Arizona,” Shareef said. “I haven’t really gotten to look at how their playing style is, but I’ve seen the campus, and the campus is nice. But I want to pay more attention to how they play.”
No question, Arizona will be paying plenty of attention to Shareef over the next year or two. Along with the rest of the basketball universe.
