Shaquille O’Neal is widely known not just for his brilliance inside the paint, but also for his penurious shooting percentage throughout his 19-year career. O’Neal shot 52% from the free throw line, 5th worse for players with more than 1200 misses. We have often seen him catching stray on the sets of TNT from Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith because of this! Many would blame the 7-foot giant’s weird shooting style or his huge hands for his poor free-throw shooting. However, Shaq seems to blame the basketball.

Shaq has been put in a lot of hilarious scenarios due to his flaws in free-throw shooting. It’s hilarious for us, but embarrassing for him. So now, the blame has fallen on the basketball. In the latest episode of The Big Podcast, the Los Angeles Lakers legend revealed, “I don’t know why I shot like that…I hope people don’t take this the wrong way. I hated the dark-skinned ball. Just don’t worry about how it sounds.” 

He further threw light into this interesting take, “The light-skinned ball…They got black balls and the yellow balls.” Shaq tried to convey that he liked the balls that were fresh out of the box, as they had a better grip.

The old ones or the “dark-skinned” ones did not help him sadly. Did they not use new balls in the NBA? Anyhow, what’s to be noted here is that Shaq is not complaining. He rather sees this as a sign from god.

Shaquille O’Neal delves deep into the sign from god on his free throw shooting 

Shaq shot 52.7% from the free-throw line, which is the 5th worst in NBA history. Notably, he is just below Wilt Chamberlain, who was 51.1% from the line. Imagine if Shaq shot more than 80%. How dominant could he have been? Anyhow, Shaq does not regret his lack of shooting. He believes it was a move from god to keep him humble. He shared, “Let me tell you something. This is just god’s way of keeping me humble.”

Read more: Shaquille O’Neal Would’ve Been Insufferable If He Harbored Stephen Curry’s Weapon, Claims TNT Employee

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He also added, “Imagine my game and being able to shoot like Steph Curry. Come on bro!” That would have made Shaq one of the deadliest players in the NBA, but they say ‘Careful what you wish for’. If we put up a hypothetical situation, where Shaq made 70% of his free throws, what do you think his total points scored would have been? It would have pushed him past the 30,000 career points mark, making him only the 6th player at the time to do so.

The 4x champion is happy with what he was blessed with. He is not asking for more.  

Read more: Desperate “Steph Curry” Calls Go Unanswered as Shaquille O’Neal Adds Another Failure to Embarrassing Free Throw History