A long list of vicious dunkers have scared numerous teams and posterized rim protectors in the NBA, forcing most of them to just accept their fate and clear the way for them to take off. But among the most savage are Darryl Dawkins and Shaquille O’Neal, who possessed both the strength to rip the rim off the backboard and the bounce to dunk opponents.
It’s hard to say which of the two dunkers is scarier, but Patrick Beverley thinks O’Neal is the greatest dunker of all time.
Over Dawkins, the guard selected the four-time NBA champion as the greatest backboard-shattering dunker of all time during a conversation with co-host Rone on The Pat Bev Podcast. Giving an explanation, he said:
“I feel like Shaq did it all the time so like, he was overdoing himself when he was doing… Shaq’s hands must’ve been throbbing after all them dunks.”
Criteria for Shaquille O’Neal being chosen by Beverley
Beverley chose his team based on how many backboards O’Neal broke. In that regard, he appears to be ahead of the pack. 12 rims are said to have been broken by the Hall of Famer during his career. But he only broke a backboard twice in an NBA game, which is the same as Dawkins, who did it in two weeks in the 1979–80 campaign.
Shaquille O’Neal during his rookie years
But the NBA moved to the breakaway rim after the former Pistons player damaged the traditional bolted rim framework. O’Neal broke two backboards in his first season, and the NBA was forced to switch to stronger backboard supports and tempered, shatter-resistant glass as a result of the alteration.
The NBA was forced to increase its expenditures for backboard protection after the Lakers legend displayed an incredible amount of his raw strength. In his debut season, O’Neal said he didn’t plan to shatter rims, but that’s not what he ended up doing.
