Shaquille O’Neil was adamant to bring Penny Hardaway to the Orlando Magic

Shaquille O'Neal opens up on when he forced the Orlando Magic to hire his movie co-star or else he'd walk

Shaq and Penny Hardaway X @nbarealist23

Shaquille O’Neil has been very vocal about many things, including when he twisted the Orlando Magic’s hand to bring in none other than Anfernee Deon “Penny” Hardaway, who made history by being Shaq’s “Kobe before Kobe”.

Shaq thought Penny Hardaway was just an actor who had amazing basketball skills

According to Hardaway, he was looking to impress Shaq as he played as his life depended on it, and in a great turn of events for Penny, Shaq was impressed by his skills, however, he thought that his future teammate was only an actor.

When appearing on Adam Lefkoe’s The Big Podcast Hardaway opened up and was not shy of telling it like it is “Here’s the thing with me, I was extremely smart, when I knew I was on the movie Blue Chips, because I knew Shaq was the most dominant person in the league and to me and I wanted to play with him really badly because I knew he would make my life easy.

So when I was going to Blue Chips, I knew that I was going to get him the ball.”

Hardaway elaborated on how he impressed Shaq “Every time Shaq looks up, every time his head raises, every time his hand is up, that ball is going to be hitting his hands every single time because I want him to know this is exactly how I would do it in the league,“

Shaq and Penny Hardaway starred in the movie Blue Chips

Shaq made the right call with Hardaway and asked for Chris Webber who was recently drafted by the Magic, to be traded for Penny from the Golden State Warriors.

“The Magic was going to take Chris Webber, but I went in to talk to Orlando general manager John Gabriel and flexed my Superman muscles.

I told him, ‘Listen, I understand you want Webber, but this cat Penny Hardaway is the answer.

If you put us together we could be like Magic and Kareem. If you don’t bring Penny I’m here, then maybe I’ve got to think about doing something else'”. Shaq said during an interview.

Back in 1995, Shaq and the rest of the team reached the NBA Finals to face the Houston Rockets who eventually won the championship that year, however, the feat of arriving on the team and reaching the Finals within two years was already outstanding.