In the spring of 2000, Shaquille O’Neal stood atop the basketball world. Dominant, explosive and bigger than life itself, he bulldozed his way through the NBA, leaving no doubt about who ruled the court. But in a season where perfection seemed inevitable, a single ballot smudged what should have been a clean sweep.
Among 121 sportscasters and journalists charged with selecting the league’s MVP, CNN’s Fred Hickman stood alone, casting his vote for electric Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson instead.
O’Neal’s salty feeling
That lone dissenting vote denied the then-Los Angeles Lakers center the honor of becoming the first unanimous MVP in NBA history — a slight he still hasn’t forgotten.
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“I do,” O’Neal said when asked if he harbored hate toward Hickman. “I don’t ever need to talk to him. There’s nothing to apologize about ’cause he destroyed history being a b***h.”
For Lakers fans and basketball enthusiasts alike, the bitterness was about witnessing dominance unmatched and the heartbreak of knowing one man’s decision rewrote history. O’Neal’s 1999-2000 campaign was the type of season sportswriters dream of covering and players spend lifetimes chasing. It was the kind of year that deserved perfection — not controversy.
That year, he led the league with a monster 29.7 points per game while shooting an absurd 57.4 percent from the field. His presence in the paint was a nightmare for defenders, a sight coaches dreaded nightly.
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On the glass, he was relentless, hauling down 13.6 rebounds per contest, second-best in the league and altering games with 3.0 blocks per night, ranking third. It was a statistical cocktail unseen since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s historic 1976-77 run when Abdul-Jabbar also cracked the top three across points, rebounds and blocks.
Hard-done by
Shaq was dominating, meanwhile, Iverson — the man Hickman chose — was brilliant. The Sixers guard posted 28.4 points per game, impressive in its own right, but he shot a less efficient 42.1 percent from the floor and sat 20th in Player Efficiency Rating (PER). O’Neal, by contrast, towered 10 points ahead in first place.
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“Was anybody doing close to what I was doing? And I told the world I was going to do that,” O’Neal said. “And they saw it in my eyes… he messed up history. And then a couple of years later he go and give Steph Curry unanimous. I love Steph. Steph is my favorite guy. He knows that. But come on.”
Years later, Hickman would cast his vote for Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry in 2016, helping the Warriors’ superstar become the league’s first and only unanimous MVP.
O’Neal isn’t the only superstar to have history derailed by a single dissenting voice. In 2013, LeBron James was primed to make his own unanimous MVP history. Yet, Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe handed his vote to Carmelo Anthony, keeping James from that immortality.
Still, only Curry remains the sole player to capture the MVP title without a single blemish. His 2016 season with the Warriors, where he shattered the 3-point record and led his team to a 73–9 regular-season record, was a spectacle no voter dared question.
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But O’Neal felt he was supposed to be the first. In the 2000 campaign, his presence led the Lakers to a 67-15 regular-season record, their best since the Showtime era and a championship that ended a decade-long drought for the franchise.