Shaq Mistook Dr.J For God When He Met Him For The First Time

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Today is Julius Erving’s birthday, time to throw it back to this story.

A couple of years ago, Shaquille O’Neal was speaking at Springfield College and discussed the first time that he ever met fellow basketball superstar, Julius “Dr. J” Erving – A Shaq-like funny story, from back when he was a student at LSU.

“True story — he woke me up in my college dorm room one day. Seriously, he was going to speak either in Baton Rouge or LSU and I was sleeping and woke up and I saw this good-looking brother with his hand on my chest. I was like, ‘God? God is a black man?’ And then I said, ‘Dr. J?’ And after I said that, I thought I was dead. I said, ‘Damn, I’m dying in college? Can you believe this?’ And it was Dr. J. We talked and we had a good conversation.”

This could have been the moment when Erving became Shaq’s favorite player – his personal GOAT- who Shaq thinks was better than Jordan or LeBron.

“I’ve seen young Mike and young LeBron and I must say Dr. J is still my favorite player,” Shaq said. “A lot of people today don’t even mention his name but to me I still think he was the best. But these are questions that we’ll never know the answer to.”