{"id":720831,"date":"2026-06-07T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T10:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720831\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T10:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T10:31:16","slug":"shaquille-oneal-says-he-chose-basketball-over-football-after-seeing-jon-koncaks-15-million-nba-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720831\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal Says He Chose Basketball Over Football After Seeing Jon Koncak’s ‘$15 Million’ NBA Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hall of Famer Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> has gone down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and we have the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> and Jon Koncak to thank for that. During an appearance on the New Heights<\/a> podcast, O\u2019Neal shared his love for playing football in his younger years and how Koncak ended up playing a big role in his choosing basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is my thing,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cAnd then my father came in the house one day and smacked me in the back of the head with a paper. He\u2019s like, \u2018You need to f***ing stop playing football and focus on basketball.\u2019 And when I opened up the paper, Jon Koncak had just signed 15 for three\u2026 I\u2019m like, \u2018First of all, who is Jon Koncak?\u2019 My dad was like, \u2018I got some tickets. We\u2019re going to go watch him.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living in San Antonio at the time,\u201d O\u2019Neal continued. \u201cSo the Hawks were playing the Spurs. And no disrespect to Jon Koncak, he was [in] the NBA. He was a pro. He was a good player\u2026 I was doing the things in high school he was doing in the pros. And I was like, s***, if this dude was making 15 for three? My dream was to make 8 million for 10 years. That was my whole dream coming out\u2026 So I started playing basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks had selected Koncak with the fifth pick in the 1985 NBA Draft. He was highly rated coming out of SMU, but didn\u2019t live up to the hype in the NBA. Fortunately for Koncak, he\u2019d still get his big payday. How did that happen? Well, here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n

Heading into the 1989 playoffs, Koncak had averaged 6.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game in the regular season in his career. That\u2019s respectable, but nothing too noteworthy.<\/p>\n

In the first round of those playoffs, though, Koncak put up 12.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.4 steals, and 1.6 blocks per game for the Hawks against the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>. Now those were some pretty good numbers, and the timing couldn\u2019t have been better.<\/p>\n

Why? Well, Koncak was hitting restricted free agency that offseason. There was a chance someone could come in and offer big money, and the Detroit Pistons<\/a> somewhat did.<\/p>\n

The Pistons had lost Rick Mahorn to the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> in the 1989 expansion draft, and needed a replacement. General manager Jack McCloskey identified the seven-foot Koncak as the man for the task.<\/p>\n

Now, O\u2019Neal says Koncak received a three-year, $15 million deal, but that\u2019s not accurate. The Pistons initially offered him a one-year, $2.5 million deal, which he accepted. The Hawks didn\u2019t want to lose Koncak, though, and ultimately signed him to a six-year, $13.2 million deal. He became one of the highest-paid players in the NBA, and it\u2019s safe to say it was a huge mistake.<\/p>\n

Koncak, who earned the nickname \u201cJon Contract,\u201d wouldn\u2019t even come close to averaging double digits in points or rebounds the rest of his time in the NBA. He retired in 1996 with career averages of 4.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game.<\/p>\n

It was also in 1996 that O\u2019Neal signed a seven-year, $120 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>. The Orlando Magic<\/a> had selected him with the first pick in the 1992 NBA Draft, and he wasted little time in establishing himself as one of the best players in the NBA. The Magic reportedly lowballed O\u2019Neal during negotiations, though, which opened the door for the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Now, that was a massive financial commitment, but O\u2019Neal proved to be worth it. He led the Lakers to a three-peat from 2000 to 2002, winning Finals MVP on all three occasions. He also won MVP in 2000 and was the best player in the NBA during those years.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal would go on to win a fourth title with the Miami Heat<\/a> in 2006, and by the time he retired, he had made $286 million in salaries, according to Spotrac<\/a>. Not too bad for someone who had a dream of making $8 million for 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hall of Famer Shaquille O\u2019Neal has gone down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-720831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}