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“We don't need another basketball player. At all,” Shaquille O'Neal has always told his kids. The former Lakers wants his kids to make careers doing what they love, but he is encouraging his children that there are other avenues besides basketball.
“So if you want to play basketball, cool, but please go to law school,” he said on the May 23 episode of Today. “Please go to medical school. Please be an engineer. Please be an AI inventor. Just do something else.”
The four-time NBA champion wants his kids to not only focus solely on basketball, the former NBA player explained that he gives them the freedom to “be who they are. I never press them.”
“In order to touch daddy’s cheese you got to show me two or three degrees,” he joked, explaining that he values the children getting a higher education.
The former Lakers star reportedly has seven children. He shares Taahirah, 28, with former girlfriend Arnetta Yardbourgh and Myles, 28, Shareef, 25, Amirah, 23, Shaqir, 22, and Me'arah, 19, whom he shares with ex-wife Shaunie Henderson.
“I never say, ‘Do this or do that.' You know, they just have to live their lives,” he explained. “I hate using this word, but I have seven perfect children. I haven’t had a problem with any of my children ever. God bless.“
Shaq speaks to his son Shareef about having a career in basketball in his forthcoming Netflix docuseries, Power Moves With Shaquille O’Neal.
“You know you're going to have to give everything up, right?” he told Shareef, per Today. “How many birthday parties did I miss? How many school plays did I miss? How many times did you wake up and not see me there?”
Shareef understood what his father was telling him and he answered, “A lot.”
“My dad missed birthdays, games, Christmas. I respected that, but I know when I was a kid, we always used to ask, ‘Is Dad gonna be there?’” Shareef recalled in the Netflix series. “We kind of knew that he’s playing basketball, he's busy. I know that every big player that has a family misses a lot of things that they wish they could go to.”
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Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson Rebuild Reebok On Netflix Docuseries Power Moves
The series follows O'Neal and NBA legend Allen Iverson on how they work together to Reebok back on the map in the competitive sportswear industry. O'Neal is currently the president of basketball at Reebok while AI serves as the vice president.
“I’ve always said Reebok was never number one but never number three. I remember when I signed with Reebok it was an emerging company then we signed Allen Iverson and Shawn Kemp and we were always in the fold. Then Adidas purchased Reebok and then it kind of went away,” the former NBA star told the Today show on Friday, May 23.
“When it came back up for sale my partner, Jamie Salter, he purchased it. For me, it’s just a challenge to bring [Reebok] back with some type of prominence. Back then we didn’t have as much competition as we have now, so there’s a lot of competition and it’s just fun, I had to learn a lot,” he added.
Power Moves drops on Netflix on June 4.
