If you put this year’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Yao Ming, Allen Iverson and Shaquille O’Neal in a room together, which one do you think is going to talk the most? If you guessed anyone but Shaq, then you don’t know basketball. The three were participating in a group interview when they were asked about their most embarrassing on-court moments in the NBA, and unsurprisingly, Shaq volunteered each of his fellow inductee’s moments.
Yao was asked first, and Shaq — without a moment of hesitation — jumped in to suggest that amazing moment when Stephon Marbury crossed up the Chinese big man so hard he fell like a tree. If only Pitbull’s “Timber” had been released at the time, it would have made for an amazing meme. Oh wait, we have to back up — it would have been great if memes had been invented back then. What a special time the world was before social media. Anyway, here’s the play:
If Stephon realized Yao was going down, there’s no way he would have passed it off to a shooter. You have to punctuate your highlights with a bucket; everyone knows that. Anyway, we choose to believe Shawn Marion missed his three-point attempt horrifically because he was too distracted by the sight of a giant falling to earth.
