Karl Malone remembers how and why did Shaq once slap Greg Ostertag
The finale of “The Last Dance” on Sunday sparked a surge of nostalgia for ’90s basketball while also unwittingly triggering a bitter memory for former Jazz centre Greg Ostertag when Shaq once slap Ostertag.
Prior to the start of Sunday’s broadcasts, Ahmad Rashad along with the host of the league took over the NBA’s social media accounts is a show called “Inside Stuff’s ’90s Reunion.” The call, which featured Rashad and 20-plus former NBA players, was both intriguing and amusing. However, things became slightly more serious when Charles Barkley questioned the players who they were shocked never grew out to be stars.
That’s when Karl Malone, who appeared prominently in “The Last Dance,” recalls how Shaq O’Neal “f—ed Greg Ostertag up for the rest of his life,” and that slap by Shaq always haunts Ostertag.
How did Malone explain about the incident when Shaq slap Ostertag?
According to Malone, O’Neal approached Ostertag and smacked him so hard that Tag’s lenses dropped out of his eyes and into the floor following a brief exchange. The event hit the front page of the newspaper. John Stockton, a former Jazz point guard, corroborated the report.
Soon after, the NBA prohibited both teams from joining the court for shootarounds. Ostertag, on the other hand, avoided speaking to the media whenever Shaq and the Lakers visited town, especially later that year when the two teams collided against each other in the Western Conference Finals.
Between 2000 and 2004, the Lakers won the Western Conference four out of five years, including an unprecedented three-peat at the turn of the millennium. O’Neal was the MVP of the league and three Finals MVPs during that stretch. Ostertag, on the other hand, spent 11 seasons as an NBA player. But he wasn’t Shaq’s opposite he seemed to be, maybe because Shaq placed a gigantic bear paw on Ostertag’s cheek by a slap.
