There was no bigger bully on the court than NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, who stood at 7’1″ and dominated his opponents inside the paint. The same can be said about him when he comes into the locker room, especially with rookies on the team.
The league called this “rookie hazing.” But sometimes the tradition can get extreme, bordering on bullying, the abusive and the traumatic – an area where the Big Diesel not only participated in but enjoyed a little too much.
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For Hall of Fame point guard Gary Payton, Shaq’s former teammate for three years, it is all part of his fun nature.
“Shaq is a jokester,” Payton said on the VladTV Podcast. But with the hazing method he used, O’Neal simply being called a jokester would be an injustice to the horror rookies suffered.
Pouring a bucket of human waste
Payton played with O’Neal on the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2003-2004 season and the Miami Heat in the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons. However, it was unclear when O’Neal performed his hazing on the young players.
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All we knew was that there was a total of 10 rookies during the seasons they played together – anybody could have been the victim. Perhaps it was best that Payton did not reveal his identity, considering the gravity of what O’Neal had done: he literally poured a bucket of human waste on them.
“If one of the rookies was in a stall, he would take a bucket and use the bathroom in it for about a week,” Payton recalled. “Then all of a sudden he’d pour it on them.”
Although the Glove did not mention whether it was urine or excrement, based on his story, it could be possible that Shaq poured all of them, considering he used the bucket for a week. Having seen this, Payton, ever the competitor, rallied the disgruntled rookies and got their revenge against the bully by stealing his shorts.
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“We started being jokers. So I said, I got to get him. I got his shorts once, which he had to wear underneath his thing. But we messed up his pants, so he had no drawers and he had to find them,” GP said.
However, their method did not work as O’Neal was unfazed.
“He had to wear a towel around him and Shaq didn’t care,” Payton continued. “He’d go outside with the towel on and was doing all kinds of everything. He’d get in the truck, ride around it and even throw his towel around and he’d be freeballing.”
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Shaq took hazing a step too far
Rookie hazing is an off-court tradition that serves as a rite of passage for rookies, a chance for them to prove they are worthy to be on the roster.
Usually, it is as simple as picking the balls after practice, buying donuts for the team, or filling a player’s car with popcorn. Kendrick Perkins once recalled getting ordered by Payton to buy alcohol at 2 a.m. and not getting paid back.
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However, as shown by Shaq, veterans would abuse this tradition. A rookie JJ Redick was once duct-taped to a chair in a cold shower, left alone to freeze.
Fortunately, the tradition has become less extreme over the years. As part of his NBA initiation, Luka Doncic carried a Hello Kitty backpack during road trips. Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown’s car was popcorned, something he is still mad about to this day. This season, the San Antonio Spurs made their rookies sing in front of the fans.
The point is that rookie hazings are supposed to be fun and harmless. However, O’Neal took it a step too far, which is ironic considering he avoided this tradition just because he was the franchise player.
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Perhaps it was the rough culture normalized back in the day, but brutal forms of rookie hazings, such as pouring human waste, would not be tolerated today; they should not have been in the first place.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Dec 24, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.