Gary Payton on Framing Shaquille O’Neal’s Underwear in His Home

Shaquille O’Neal was known to be one of the most dominant players in NBA history, but he was also known to be a master of pranksters. He used to play all kinds of pranks and tricks on his teammates. But once in Miami, it’s the turn of one of his teammates to take his revenge on Shaq.

Shaq was traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Miami Heat after having a feud with Kobe Bryant. He had a great first year as he came second in MVP voting. But the Heat lost to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals. Subsequently, they made several acquisitions and one of them was signing Gary Payton to their team.

Payton was in his swan song years and he wanted a championship before he retired. He said everyone on the team made jokes and that Shaq was a prankster. He recalls a funny incident that left Shaq dumbfounded.

Shaquille O’Neal used to throw towels

Payton says he once took Shaq’s shorts and hid them. He adds, “So I said, I have to look for him. So I got his drawers one day, and I took them and he had to wear them underneath under his thing and do freeball all the time, okay.

“But we messed up his pants so he had no drawers because he was trying to find his drawers and I had them, you know what I’m saying. So he had to fit a towel around him and Shaq s Don’t care, he’ll come out with the towel, everything.

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“He was just doing all sorts of things. He’d get in his truck, go around the thing, and then he’d throw in the towel and he was freeballing. So I used to keep all the shorts and pairs of drawers and stuff.

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Payton says he still has those drawers in his house. He would have framed it in memory. This prank was one for the ages, but Shaq didn’t seem fazed. He really didn’t care and he went to prank his teammates. He would surely have had his revenge on Payton for his act.