Royce “Shaquillee” O’Neale is already 24? So what was he doing between not getting drafted and randomly appearing on the Jazz opening night roster? Sitting around on a couch in his mom’s basement and jacking it to Japanese cartoons? Because that’s what I was doing between the ages of 21 and 24.
I looked it up to save you guys the trouble, he was averaging 8 points for some random German team, then played in a Summer League, then he signed with Herbalife Gran Canaria, the only pro basketball team that I’m aware of that is named after an MLM scheme.
And now he’s back in the good ol’ US of A, plying his trade at the highest level even though I can’t tell that he was ever especially good at any level of basketball since high school. That’s what’s great about the NBA: niche players can find decent roles even if they’re not flashy or statistically impressive.
Speaking of statistically impressive, O’Neale just dropped 18 and 5 against a team that had Gregg Popovich as the head coach. And it wasn’t just statistically impressive; it was visually impressive as well, especially some of his assists. Did anyone realize that he had this kind of passing ability?