“He’ll Get It All” – Dennis Rodman Surprisingly Predicted The Salary of Shaquille O’Neal at Lakers in His Book
Dennis Rodman once predicted how much money Shaquille O’Neal will make as a Lakers player. NBA players did not receive the massive sums of money that they do now. Before the current standards were implemented, the rules about player wages were different. When Shaq was playing, the NBA was a totally different place.
In a book Dennis Rodman wrote in 1996 called “Bad as I Wanna Be,” he mentioned that the NBA started giving big salaries to star players. This was done to make sure that the stars would stay with their current team or be traded to a new team.
Dennis Rodman predicted the salary of Shaquille O’Neal
“I think a lot of NBA teams use the salary cap as an excuse when a team wants to do something,” Rodman said.
“It always seems to be able to do it. Larry Johnson is making $87 million over twelve years in Charlotte. That’s almost enough money to buy a team. Down the road, Shaquille O’Neal is going to want $100 million, and he’ll get it, all within the salary cap,” he added.
During that time, Charlotte was trying to become a famous NBA team and they built their team around Larry Johnson. They gave him a contract worth $87 million. Johnson played well for five seasons, averaging 19.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. At the same time, Shaquille O’Neal, who played for the Orlando Magic, joined the Lakers with a massive $121 million deal for seven years.
Rodman turned out to be correct in a sense. He predicted a time when it would become common for the NBA to offer large contracts to superstar players.
Shaquille O’Neal’s stats with the Lakers
In the eight seasons Shaquille O’Neal played for the LA Lakers, he was really amazing. He scored an average of 27.0 points per game and grabbed 11.8 rebounds per game. He played a crucial role in bringing championships back to Los Angeles after the time of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Shaq and Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to three consecutive titles. During their prime, they were a dangerous duo that destroyed other teams in the league.
