Shaquille O'Neal opens up on the three major regrets in his life / News - Basketnews.com

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Shaquille O’Neal took the time for a visit to The Pivot Podcast, where he talked in a brutally honest way about how he was influenced by his separation from his wife Shaunie and the hard times he went through.

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"I had the perfect situation, wife was finer than a mug, kept giving me babies, still finer than a mug. I had it all, and I don't make excuses. I know I messed up. When I didn't have that...I was lost.

76.000 square-foot house by yourself, lost. You start to feel it," O'Neal told hosts Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor.

Nelson and O'Neal married in 2002 and the couple had four children, but in 2007 they separated and in 2009 Shaunie filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences."

In addition to his divorce from Shaunie, O'Neal revealed that the other two big regrets in his life are the relationships on a professional and personal level that he failed to maintain with former teammates Kobe Bryant and Penny Hardaway.

O'Neal spent his first four seasons in the NBA with the Orlando Magic after being selected first overall in the 1992 Draft. In the 1993 Draft, he wanted the Magic to select guard Penny Hardaway and even threatened to leave the franchise if that didn’t happen.

On The Pivot Podcast, O’Neal revealed how he demanded the Orlando Magic to draft Hardaway.

"I called and said, 'Hey man, y'all heard of Penny Hardaway?' 'Yeah, we might not be able to get him.' I said, 'Y'all need to get him, I don't know what you can do.' I said, 'Well, if y'all don't get him, when my deal is up in two years, I'm going to be looking to do something else.'

That's what I told them. "I was thinking the next Magic and Kareem. That's all I was thinking. And you like playing with a guy that likes to look out for you. He was good enough to go for himself, but he was always looking out for me."

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The Magic had the first overall pick of the 1993 Draft. However, instead of picking Hardaway, they went with Chris Webber, which frustrated O’Neal. However, his frustration only lasted 10 minutes as the Golden State Warriors selected Hardaway with the third pick. They then traded him and future draft picks to the Orlando Magic for Webber.

O’Neal and Hardaway took the Magic to the NBA Finals in 1994-95 and the Eastern Conference Finals the following season. The twowould only play together for three seasons before O’Neal moved to the Los Angeles Lakers after four years with the Orlando Magic.

Shaq loved how Hardaway passed the ball, and that is why he wanted him on his team.

"We had like two different mafias on the team," O'Neal said on teaming up with Hardaway and taking down guards and big men as a duo.

In the end, that relationship was broken, as was Shaq's rapport with Kobe Bryant.

"Big mistake in the Penny relationship. Big mistake in the Kobe relationship, I was arrogant, I was dumb, but sometimes when you do a lot of stuff you don't want to work at stuff. Those the only three major regrets that I have," Shaq said.

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