“The first time I met Magic Johnson, he pulled me to the side, and he said, ‘It’s ok to be famous, but you want to start owning things‘” –Shaquille O’Neal said to Graham Bensinger in 2015. That left a mark on the young rookie, and he was happy to inculcate the habits in his life. It was all before he built a brand and even stepped foot in the NBA. Magic Johnson trained O’Neal before starting with Orlando Magic.

And here at EssentiallySports, we exclusively got to hear one such story. Recently, our NBA enthusiast Vishal Kolar had another conversation with Leonard Armato, ex-agent of Shaquille O’Neal, who revealed the superstar stature of Shaq and his presence before moving to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Vishal: “You know, being the brand builder that when you initially saw this interest in the Lakers right and going to LA how proactive were you guys with like hey Shaq wants to do hip hop, Shaq wants to act you know, Shaq wants to be this larger-than-life personality. Like how important was the fact of being in LA influencing that decision with like Shaq’s off-the-court interest?”

Armato: “Well, you know I always believed that Shaq transcended markets, and he did from the beginning because if you remember, he was massive even when he was in Orlando. He had, you know, commercials with Reebok, he had commercials with Pepsi. He was tearing down rims on National TV. I mean, everybody knew who he was.” Armato further explained how Shaq was already the superstar at Orlando Magic before arriving in LA.

Armato: “It wasn’t like he needed to be in LA. You know to be an international Superstar. We were traveling around the world um you know with Reebok and Pepsi doing all kinds of appearances in the offseason.”

According to him, O’Neal was already doing movies and hip-hop music. Plus, he also had a deal with Jive Records when he was in Orlando before making the big move to the Lakers. Shaquille was inspired a lot by Magic Johnson and got the blessings from the former Lakers legend.

Armato: “Magic looked down on the Forum and said here’s the kinds of things that you can do because of who you are and the kind of person you are and the charisma that you have so you know, Shaq has Magic to thank for a lot of great mentorship and Magic always treated us with tremendous respect and tremendous consideration.” And it’s not the only advice that Shaq received from Johnson.

Shaq tried to be like Magic Johnson

Shaquille O’Neal on Rex Chapman’s podcast in October 2023, revealed that he’s what he is now because of Magic Johnson. He told Chapman that when he first came to L.A., his attitude was, “This ain’t Magic’s town. I’m the man now.” Shaq splurged his first paychecks carelessly against Magic’s advice to be smarter.

“One thing he always told me, ‘Shaq, you gotta smile and be nice to people.’ He said, ‘if you just smile and be nice to people, you’d get so many opportunities.'” That advice served Shaq well.

He revealed he was following Magic’s advice once, smiling and playing with a bunch of kids at the Four Seasons Hotel. One of the kids’ parents got him intrigued by an investment opportunity. That led him to invest in the early incarnation of Google at a $100 million valuation. He would find out from the papers how much money he made from the $1.5 trillion giant.

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, had to say about the Reese-Clark rivalry and more, watch this video.