Former Dutch NBA player, Geert Hammink, was featured in the newest episode of 1-ON-1 with Basketball Network. He remembered playing against a 17-year-old Shaquille O’Neal who was a force to be reckoned with even at such a young age.
“At one point, I was isolated against him at a pickup game in the summer, and somebody else shot, and I thought I had him solidly boxed out at the block,” Hammink recalled played against the future four-time NBA champion. “And somehow, he jumped straight up and stretched out, rebounded, and dunked it over me. I was like, ‘this is physically impossible.'”
“He was at such high intensity where somebody on his team – I was on the other team – would shoot an airball, the ball would bounce out of bounds, he would chase it down way out of bounds, bring it back inbounds, dunk on everybody, and said, ‘There’s no out of bounds here.'”
