Shaq says he’d sign with Bulls and Michael Jordan if it was acceptable

Back in 1996, Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal decided to join the Los Angeles Lakers, where he would build a dynasty with Kobe Bryant and future Lakers head coach Phil Jackson.

However, Shaq had other options.

At the time, super teams were rare. The only superteam in the NBA at the time was the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Jordan and Pippen led the Bulls to six NBA championships and two three-peats.

Superteams are more common these days, and a perfect example is the Golden State Warriors, who were able to lure Kevin Durant to join Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

Recently, O’Neal said that if he had known it was “acceptable” to create a superteam, he would have joined Jordan and the Bulls, and later Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.

“So, it’s supposed to be about competition. If I knew it was okay to join people, (expletive) I would join the Bulls,” O’Neal said on The Big Podcast.

“I would play with Mike and Scottie, and then I would leave them and play with the Spurs in my hometown of San Antonio. But, no, I thought, no. I want to beat all these guys.”

Shaq also recalled Durant’s experience joining the Warriors in 2016.

“We’re always like, ‘No, you’re the guy. You’re the guy. You’ve got to get it done. You’ve got to say, you’ve got to make the trade, you’ve got to do this. You can’t (leave),’ and I think he’s It was done before it was acceptable,” the Hall of Famer said of Durant.

“Now it’s acceptable, people just say, ‘I want to come here, I want to do this. Oh hey, you play on this team, you play on this team, let’s join this team and make the Big Three. “But again, if I knew it was acceptable, I would have gone and played with Mike.”

The idea of ​​Shaq teaming up with Jordan, Pippen and Dennis Rodman is certainly a scary thought.

The Bulls were good enough and crushed any competition they faced. But with Shaq on board, things will be much easier for them.

If he later goes to San Antonio, he will have the opportunity to work with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Maybe the Spurs won the championship in the 2000s instead of the Lakers.

Granted, the Spurs won championships in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007 with everything they had. But similar to what might have happened if Shaq joined the Bulls, the Spurs would be a completely different team and would likely prevent the Lakers from building their dynasty.

Fortunately for the rest of the NBA, neither of those scenarios happened, but if they did, a lot of things would be different, and it’s certainly interesting to think about what would have happened if O’Neal had chosen to join forces with the Bulls. interesting. When he got the chance, he went to Tottenham.