Before he was the gentle giant, Shaquille O’Neal was the most dominant center in the NBA. He reveled in the other team being scared to guard him. But he couldn’t crack one peaceful NBA star. 4x NBA champion Tony Parker expressed with great pride that he didn’t take Shaq’s bait on the court. The former San Antonio Spurs guard preferred self-preservation over taking on the big man.

Parker gets to boast that he has very few technical fouls in his career. Quite the contrary to Shaq stuffing the stat sheet with techs.

Tony Parker chose not to fight Shaq

Tony Parker talked about playing against guys way bigger than his 6’2″ frame this week on SKWEEK Show. When he was with the San Antonio Spurs, he had some big opponents, namely Shaquille O’Neal. Parker, though, chose not to rile up the 7’1″ giant.

“I wasn’t going to fight with guys 2.15m or 2.30m even if Shaquille O’Neal beat me up every time,” Parker stated. He wasn’t very well-known to get into altercations on court and didn’t trash-talk or collect as many technical fouls in his career.

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“I was really small in my field,” the Parisien Torpedo said. “So it’s clear I wouldn’t fight against the seven-foot guys. Even if Shaquille O’Neal made some big fouls on me, I stayed on the floor. I wouldn’t get up to face him.”

It’s a very wise policy to have if you’re face-to-face with the intimidating Big Diesel. O’Neal, the menace on the court he was, picked up technicals like M&M’s. He earned 150 technicals across 19 seasons, good enough to be No.17 on the list of most technical fouls in league history. It’s not even half of what Karl Malone (332) and Charles Barkley (329) picked up, but he was a huge human to displease.

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In contrast, Parker would pick up max three or four fouls in a season. Once, just for yelling ‘hey.’ He said on SKWEEK that he kept the “poker face” signature to the San Antonio Spurs to stay out of trouble on the court. Shaq missed that memo.

Shaquille O’Neal is comfortable with fouls

O’Neal has a history with referees and fouls. He was a prime target to get fouled, but Robert Horry would say that referees would be dismissive of giants like Shaq getting a few shoves. O’Neal would not make it to the free-throw line nearly as much as he’d get his own calls.

Unlike the conflict-free Tony Parker, O’Neal is forgiving of other pros playing dirty. Specifically, he said he’d have done the same thing Draymond Green did to Rudy Gobert recently. Horry confirmed Shaq totally would’ve. It was a norm for O’Neal to have an on-court altercation and Horry has witnessed them.

Like Parker, Horry too kept his distance. Clearly, there’s an unspoken policy to handle a foul-happy Shaq.

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