Shaquille O’Neal continues to show that he is the Big Teddy Bear.
The mountainous NBA Hall of Famer was conducting his commentating duties for TNT’s “Inside the NBA” when the station showed a video of O’Neal paying off a man’s engagement ring.
Shaq, as he universally called, says he was looking for hoop earrings at a Zales jewelry store in the Buckhead section of Atlanta when he happened upon a man setting up a payment plan for an engagement ring.
“I had seen the guy come in … he was just so shy,” Shaq said once the subject was broached on the popular hoops show. “He was saying, ‘Hey, how much do I owe to pay off my ring.'”
The former Los Angeles Lakers center, who often calls himself the Big Aristotle and the Big Diesel, suddenly turned into the Big Softie.
"I'm just trying to make people smile… That's all."@SHAQ helped a young man out at a local jewelry store by paying for his engagement ring. pic.twitter.com/eK8n0YHGb7
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 7, 2021
“And I was like, ‘My man, how much is the ring?’ I’m not going to say the amount, but it’s not a lot for me,” Shaq said to his co-hosts, former teammate and future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade and WNBA superstar Candace Parker.
Shaq then whipped out his credit card and paid off the ring on the spot.
“I was like, ‘You know what? Tell your girlfriend I got her,'” Shaq recalls. “‘I’ll take care of it.’
“At first, he didn’t want to take it. He was like, ‘Man, I can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I do it all the time,'” Shaq added, saying that when he leaves the house every day, “I’m just trying to make people smile. … That’s all.”
