Shaquille O’Neal to become Sacramento State men’s basketball general manager, per report

Shaquille O’Neal is adding to his post-NBA resume.

According to ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania, O’Neal — who is famously known as Shaq — is returning to the college ranks, as he has agreed to be the general manager for the Sacramento State men’s basketball program.

Per Charania, O’Neal will not be paid for his services to the four-time NBA Finals champion and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, as it is an unpaid, voluntary role.

The decision for O’Neal to become the first general manager for first-year coach Mike Bibby also will allow him to be around his son, Shaqir O’Neal, who transferred to Sacramento State from Florida State last month.

In a world where Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) has taken over college athletics, the three-time NBA Finals MVP and 15-time NBA All-Star joins Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry and Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young as prominent NBA figures to take on a general manager role at the college level. Both Curry and Young accepted assistant general manager roles at their alma maters, Davidson and Oklahoma, respectively.

O’Neal, who also serves as an analyst on TNT’s “Inside the NBA, was drafted No. 1 overall by the Orlando Magic in the 1992 NBA Draft out of LSU, where he was a two-time SEC Player of the Year and the 1991 National Player of the Year.

Sacramento State has made a Shaquille O’Neal-sized splash.

O’Neal has agreed to become the men’s basketball program’s new general manager, Sacramento State officials confirmed to The Bee on Monday. ESPN reported O’Neal will be serving in a “voluntary” role.

O’Neal, a four-time NBA champion and one of the greatest centers of all time, will be overseeing a program that added his son, Shaqir, this spring after hiring former Sacramento King point guard Mike Bibby as head coach.

Name, image and likeness legislation was passed by multiple states in the summer of 2021 that overturned the NCAA’s previous stance preventing athletes from getting paid.

Since then, general manager positions, often filled by prominent sports figures, have been created to oversee spending on players, with examples including former quarterback Andrew Luck at Stanford, Stephen Curry as co-assistant general manager at Davidson, former Senior Bowl chief Jim Nagy at Oklahoma football and long-time NFL executive David Lombardi at UNC to work with Bill Belichick.

Sacramento State has long had eyes on making headlines in the sports scene. The school’s football program is hoping to upgrade from the FCS to the top-tier FBS thanks to an influx of NIL money — along with building a new, state-of-the-art football stadium.

The basketball program, now led by Bibby, is coming off a 7-25 season, last place in the Big Sky Conference under Michael Czepil following the resignation of David Patrick, who left last May to take an assistant coaching job at LSU.

O’Neal, 53, is currently working as a studio analyst for TNT following his widely successful 19-year playing career. He won three championships with the Los Angeles Lakers alongside Kobe Bryant from 1999 to 2002. He joined the Miami Heat and won a title playing with Dwayne Wade in 2005-06.

O’Neal owned a share of the Sacramento Kings beginning in 2013 before he announced the sale of his stake in 2022. O’Neal is reportedly worth roughly $500 million.