NBA Facts

Michael Jordan wasn't actually cut from his high school basketball team - as a 5'10" sophomore, he was placed on the junior varsity squad instead of varsity, which was standard practice. He used the perceived slight as motivation and made varsity the following year.

Tim Duncan trained for the Olympics as a teenager. He was one of the best young swimmers in the country. His sister Tricia had already swum at the 1988 Olympics. Then Hurricane Hugo hit St. Croix in 1989 and destroyed the island's only Olympic-size pool. The only place left to train was the open ocean, and Duncan was terrified of sharks. He quit swimming, picked up basketball at 14, and became a five-time NBA champion.

After being traded to the Phoenix Suns, Shaquille O'Neal went to Walmart at 2 AM to furnish his new apartment. He spent $70,000 on TVs, laptops, and appliances in a single trip. His credit card was declined because the bank flagged it as fraud — they couldn't believe someone was spending that much at Walmart.

Shaquille O'Neal has quietly rebuilt basketball courts for 30 years. The first was in Orlando, where Marquis Daniels grew up. Daniels made the NBA and told O'Neal: "Because you fixed it up, I'm here." O'Neal has since rebuilt six more courts - he's still doing it, one court at a time.

Shaquille O'Neal is also a touring festival DJ. He started spinning records as a college student at LSU. Today the 7-foot-1 Hall of Famer performs as DJ Diesel, a bass-heavy electronic act. He has played Tomorrowland in Belgium and Lollapalooza in Chicago, and in 2023 he released a full album. He still tours, playing clubs, festivals and college campuses.

Dennis Schroder was offered an $84 million contract by the Lakers. He turned it down - he thought he was worth $100 million. Then his performance tanked. The big offers vanished. He eventually signed with the Celtics for $5.9 million. He paid $78 million to bet on himself.

Arthur Ehrat, a farmer who barely followed basketball, built the rim that bends on every dunk. In 1976, his nephew, a college coach, said players kept bending rims. Ehrat tried magnets in his shed. They failed. A coil spring off a John Deere field cultivator held instead. A player shattered two backboards in 1979, but the NBA didn't adopt the rim until 1981. Every dunk since traces back to a farmer's tractor spring.