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Speaking on the Str8 to Da League podcast, Jermaine O'Neal shared that Kentucky was his top choice coming out of high school and that Pitino had heavily recruited him, making multiple in-home visits with O'Neal and his family. "I was going to go to Kentucky. Shout out to Rick Pitino, man. Like he recruited me, and this was like the realest thing, man. My mother loved him, man. She loved him," O'Neal said. According to O'Neal, Pitino's honesty ultimately convinced him to skip college and enter the NBA Draft.
Jermaine O'Neal: I was going to go to Kentucky. Shout out to Rick Pitino man. Like he recruited me and this was like the realest thing man. My mother loved him man. She loved him. He was sitting in our living room he said look man, he said Jermaine he came all four times on the visits and he said look everything I know about you and your family, you know, the struggles the things you’re going through. He said we’re going to be good with you or we going to be good without you. Would love to have you, but you should go pro. And that was the realest thing, bro.
Jermaine O'Neal: The NBA has done a lot for all of us bro, like it’s transcended our families our kids are like, you know, everything about what we are today is because the NBA. But make no mistake, bro, like some of the sh*t that went on, bro, like with, you know, I look at my situation, bro, where I average 2.3 blocks a game for almost 11 straight years, right? And did not make an All-Defensive team, and it’s three of them. I led the league in total blocks. And did not make an All-Defensive team, bro. And still having to score every night, you know what I’m saying? So it’s just like this crazy thing, bro. Like it’s just certain things I hadn’t quite gotten over yet, bro. Because I always took pride in blocking shots and fu*k like not to get one of the three and you lead the league in blocks.
Jermaine O'Neal: "I remember asking some Lakers—Rick Fox, Derek Fisher—where Kobe was when they were out at a bar. They laughed and said, ‘He doesn’t go out. He stays in his room.’ Early in his career, people said he wasn’t a great teammate, but the truth is, his teammates didn’t know him well. That was his makeup—he was always studying, always preparing. It created a perception that he didn’t want to be around the team. And in the NBA, we’re always around each other, so if you don’t see a teammate, it feels like he doesn’t want to be part of the group. But with Kobe, it was just focus—it wasn’t personal."
Jermaine O'Neal: But here’s what I’ll tell you: If we’re playing a possession game, mid-post to post—say, one-on-one to five—I like my chances. Now, if we’re talking full court? No way. I’m losing that battle. These legs don’t have that much gas left. But in the post? I still like my chances against anybody." Dan Patrick: "Okay. So if I put you against Victor Wembanyama in the post—just straight post work?" Jermaine O'Neal: *"Yeah, I think I got a chance. Absolutely. Look, Dan, you know how these comments go—they’ll go viral! But if we’re saying, 'Throw me the ball in the post, let’s go one-on-one,' I still like my chances. I’m still nimble enough to get it done. If it’s about running up and down the floor, screen-and-roll action? Yeah, take me out. But mano-a-mano, low block battle? I still got that."
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Jorge Sierra: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander passed all these players in playoff scoring tonight: Tracy McGrady Mychal Thompson Anthony Edwards Archie Clark Jermaine O'Neal Paul Silas Bradley Beal Sean Elliott Cedric Maxwell Kevin Love Rolando Blackman He's No. 205 all-time now.
Scott Agness: Myles Turner has passed Jermaine O'Neal to become the franchise's playoff leader in blocks with 121. Already has two in Game 3
Jermaine O’Neal plans on being back for Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday as well. After all, he, too, has been waiting a quarter-century to see this franchise in the spot they fell just short of in his time in Indianapolis. "I’m just happy for the city," O'Neal said. "The city’s been through a lot. It’s a hard-hat, hard-working city with people that really love the team. Man, I’m happy for them. The energy was amazing. That’s what I told my wife: If I had to say one thing I miss about playing and playing there, it’s the energy. I felt like I was in the game. I was sweating, and I’m like, ‘Why am I sweating?’ I had one of the equipment guys get me a washcloth. I was sweating like that."
O'Neal felt something when he ran into Carlisle before Game 4 against the Knicks and realized the symmetry in his coach returning to this moment. “He’s one of the greatest coaches I’ve ever been around," said O'Neal, who is now coaching Dynamic Prep Academy in Irving, Texas. "He’s just smart, man. You let a guy like Rick Carlisle to script against the same team in a seven-game series, he’s probably going to win a lot of those battles, if you give him talent to go with his basketball mind."
O'Neal shared a moment with Tyrese Haliburton before Game 4, where he told the star point guard to become more selfish. He said Haiburton told him, "I've got you, OG." “You can tell he’s a basketball savant," O'Neal said. "He works to set the table for other people, and sometimes that unique skillset can impact your ability to impact the game offensively if you keep passing, keep passing and keep going. I think his next step will probably come next year, which is probably why he didn’t make the All-Star Game this year because he had too many games where he wasn’t aggressive. I think he can still get 30 and 10. He has to take that next step."
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Jermaine O'Neal: "But I remember two things that happened right away. I was sitting at Champs downtown Indianapolis, literally the table next to me, and they’re talking—like I can’t hear them—but they’re talking about me. Because Dale Davis was so loved in Indianapolis, they were like, 'Yeah, that’s the guy they traded Dale for,' in a negative tone. So I’m like, 'Okay, cool.' I’m taking it all in. Now, I say this to say—I always struggled. The demon I was struggling with was acceptance. So it made me angry. Angry about everything I did because I wanted to be accepted. My dad never accepted me. That was another learned behavior. So already, I’m turning up. I said, 'Okay, I know what I got to go do.'"
"Me and Ron had this thing at the time. I wasn't as educated about what he was going through, so I took it as him trying to derail what we were trying to do." "You're getting ready to talk about, 'I just want the two to get together'—I wasn't trying to hear that. Either you show up every day and give us what you need to give us so we can go win this game, or we got a problem." "That became a real thing in our locker room, really for the existence. I tried—'Man, come on out, let's go grab dinner. Let me figure it out.' But y’all know back then, if you said somebody was crazy or whatever, it was like a torn Achilles. Wasn't no 'mental health' back then. Definitely wasn't called that. Straight up." "So that became a little bit of a challenge for us. One thing we were really good at—when they threw the ball up, we just went and hooped. But then, when we stepped off that court, we went our separate ways. There was no real camaraderie. The team, it was—but me and Ron, it wasn't." "And in order to win a chip, your guys got to be guys. I try my best to look at it differently, but I'm already dealing with my own demon."
Jermaine O'Neal: “And I look to the left—because again, my security guy’s to the left—and I see Anthony Johnson down there. See, people think I just ran in and just started hitting people. That wasn’t the case. I saw him—he’s on the ground, the guy, the little guy’s on top of him, and there are people standing around him. I see Anthony Johnson trying to get up, and I run over there and I slip. But I hit him because now he’s trying to bring harm to my homeboy, my teammate. Here’s the thing that really bugged me out. See, I went to federal court. People thought I was suspended and came back, just served my suspension, but I went to federal court—and won. I went to federal court in New York City. We went through the appeals process, went through all that—and won. And the judge said I had every right to do what I did. Yeah, every right. Nobody said nothing, right? And that was fine. I understood—the timing wasn’t right.”
Jermaine O'Neal: "Man, growing up in Columbia was a little bit different. For me, it wasn’t necessarily about the city, because the hood really did the job with me. I was trying to find my way—I never really felt whole as a young man, because I didn’t meet my dad until I was 30 years old. That was 13 years into the NBA. So I was trying to find acceptance across the board. When you're looking for that kind of acceptance, you deal with that every day. There are a lot of different routes you could take—really should be around 100%."