Everyone knows about Shaq’s playful and comedic personality, he also likes to exert his strength and dominance against others. Put all that together and you have this terrifying prank he would pull on his Phoenix Suns teammates.
Golden State Warriors assistant and former Phoenix Suns head coach Alvin Gentry appeared on TrueHoopTV and told the harrowing tale of how Shaq would take his teammates by surprise and wrestle them to the ground completely naked. Gentry says he was once a victim as well.
If you’d rather not watch the video (which is an animated re-enaction by the way) here’s the transcript via Dime Magazine:
Gentry: The thing that [Shaq] did that he was notorious for is every few days – or week or so – he would decide that it was time for this Brazilian, naked wrestling contest. So you would never know who the chosen one was.
What would happen when you least expect is that this seven-foot, 310 pound guy would turn the corner. And he would be stark naked and he would run right at you full-speed, grab you. He would take you to the floor and then he would do about five rollovers with you. And he would always tell our trainers who it was gonna be, so they were always prepared for it. But you never knew who it was gonna be.
Yes, I was a victim of this.
Henry Abbott: Did you require support of the training staff to recover?
Gentry: I did. And then I also had to go to therapy quite a bit after that (laughs).
Abbott:You’re the coach! I’d imagine somebody seeing this might think it would be to prevent this kind of thing from happening.
Gentry: Nobody prevents Shaw from doing anything.
You can watch the video HERE.
