Shaquille O'Neal may have four championship rings and a Hall of Fame plaque, but he's not handing his son a basketball legacy without a warning label.
In his new Netflix series "Power Moves with Shaquille O'Neal," the 53-year-old NBA legend sits down with his 25-year-old son Shareef — a G League forward with NBA ambitions — and delivers a gut-check most young athletes never hear from their superstar parents.
"Are you ready to live that life? Because if you want to be great, my man, you've gotta sacrifice everything," Shaq told his son. "I've lost a family trying to be great."
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O'Neal didn't say it for the cameras — he meant it. And this wasn't the first time he's opened up about the personal cost of building an empire.
"The Big Podcast with Shaq" last year, he spoke with retired NFL star Jason Kelce about the fallout of his obsession with success.
"I made a lot of dumbass mistakes to where I lost my family and I didn't have anybody," Shaq said. "Lost my whole family. I'm in a 100,000-square-foot house by myself."
That kind of clarity didn't come from a post-game press conference — it came from hindsight.
Now, as his son prepares to try out for the Sacramento Kings, O'Neal admits he's hesitant to watch Shareef step into a spotlight that may never fully be his own.
"I don't want him to play because it will be unfortunate for him that they will compare him to me," he said. "Similar to what Bronny James is going through now. Unfair to him, and I don't really want him to go through that."
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He continued, "What he doesn't realize about me is I was crazy. Basketball's the only thing I cared about. It did jeopardize our relationship a little bit, and I don't want him to ever have to live like that. Everything comes back to the O'Neal name."
For Shareef, that name is both a blessing and a bullhorn.
"My dad missed birthdays, games, you know, Christmas," he said. "I respect it now. I know when I was a kid, we always used to ask, is your dad going to be here? We kind of knew that, okay, he's playing basketball, he's busy."
Despite the weight of comparisons and expectations, Shareef isn't backing down.
"I'm going to try out for the team, and if they offer me a spot, then I've got a lot to think about. I don't really have a plan B."
Shaq, once obsessed with greatness, now seems more focused on legacy — not just stats, but stability. What started as a father-son talk about basketball turned into something deeper: a lesson about limits, identity, and the real scoreboard that matters when the buzzer sounds.
Because it turns out, being great on the court can cost you everything off it — and Shaq's making sure his son understands the difference.
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