Shaquille O’Neal and His Ex-wife Shaunie Prevented Their Son Shareef From Joining NBL

When Shareef O’Neal entered the 2022 NBA Draft, he was aware that his goals of playing in the NBA were unrealistic. It took Shareef some time to recuperate from an open heart surgery in 2018. Though his effect was never the same, his return to the basketball floor was widely appreciated.

O’Neal was aware that it was extremely unlikely that any NBA team would select him after he averaged 2.6 points and 3.0 rebounds over three seasons.

During his visit on the At The Buzzer podcast, O’Neal revealed: “I know I’m not gonna get drafted. I already knew this before I declared,”

Shareef intended to enroll in the G League camp, work out hard, and join a summer league team. With a solid double-double performance during the camp, he accomplished just that and secured a spot on the Lakers’ Summer League roster. He averaged 5.6 points and 3.2 rebounds for G League Ignite after being selected by them in the Summer League.

Shareef talks about Shaquille O’Neal’s advice

However, O’Neal’s contract expired following his 2022–2023 time with them. He was contacted at that time by representatives of Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL). Shareef was thinking about it a lot when he spoke with his father, Shaquille O’Neal. “You’re serious about visiting Australia?” Shaq questioned his son.

“I want to leave America. These past few years of my life, I don’t know, like I might as well live my life now. I already just went through whatever I went through and I was like, you know, sh*t’s not working out over here,”

Shareef recalled how his dad then put a definitive halt to that thinking. He talked about how Shaq and his mother, Shaunie Henderson, talked about it and disagreed.

“He’s like me and your mom talked about it. We’re not gonna let you go to Australia. That’s too far like damn, speaking to everything that happened, like the closest person to you is a 16-18 hour flight. He’s like we’re not going for that.”

When it comes to their children, Shaq and Shaunie always put up a united front, despite their disagreements. Together, they made the decision not to send their kid to play basketball halfway over the world. Shaq didn’t abandon Shareef, though.

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