Shaq has always said he dunked on Dudley that hard because he was angry over not being double-teamed.
(Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images), (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
On the latest episode of Complex’s GOAT Talk, Shaq and his son Myles played a round of the popular game where they named some of the greatest and worst things in pop culture. One of the questions asked was Shaq’s greatest highlight, and his pick was a moment that is deeply ingrained in basketball fans’ minds.
Shaq spent 19 years in the NBA and built a hall-of-fame career filled with countless highlights, but his dunk on Chris Dudley during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks in 1999 takes the cake for him. According to Shaq, he received the ball near the bottom of the key and was angry that the Knicks didn’t send a double team at him as he was posting up Dudley.
Shaq took matters into his own hands and violently dunked on Dudley and let his genitals slide down the former Knicks center’s body. Dudley tried to hang on, but Shaq shoved him to the court to add further insult to humiliation.
“I’m at the Forum, and I take a bounce, and Chris Dudley is on me,” Shaq recalled. “It’s against my religion if you don’t double-team me. It means you’re not showing me proper respect. Now he’s trying to use his strength, and the double is not coming; I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ So I take another bounce, and he is still there, so now I’m pissed.”
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He continued, “So now I just take another bounce, drop step, dunk, try to put my nuts all on his freaking face. Like just open up the legs, the dunkman pose, and then when I was coming down, he was like, ‘Oooh,’ and I was like, ‘Fuck off me,’ and I pushed him.”
What happened after made the dunk one of the funniest moments in NBA history as well. As Dudley got back on his feet, he showed his frustration with Shaq pushing him by throwing the ball back at the four-time NBA champion and yelling “Fuck you!” at him.
In 2024, current Lakers coach JJ Reddick told Shaq that dunk was his favorite during an episode of The Old Man and The Three. According to Shaq, the defensive scheme the Knicks and Pat Riley tried to put on him wouldn’t work, as he got beat up harder in the past, so a double-team should’ve happened.
Shaquille O'Neal has claimed his disrespectful dunk on Chris Dudley back in 1999 is his greatest highlight.
On the latest episode of Complex's ‘GOAT Talk’
pic.twitter.com/X4iBfZuqtQ— Complex (@Complex) September 5, 2024
