The following article first appeared on BasketballNetwork.net:
After he debunked the myth of white players not being tough during the episode of "The Big Podcast," Shaquille O’Neal singled out Hall-of-Famer Dino Radja as the “toughest white guy” he went up against.
Shaq faced off against Radja in 12 regular-season games and one playoff series, and ended up on the winning side 10 times – seven in the regular season and three in the postseason. O'Neal put up better individual numbers than the 6-foot-11 Croatian, who only spent four years in the NBA, but these match-ups weren't as one-sided as many of Shaq's big-man battles. Instead, Radja typically put up a good fight.
Shaq averaged 30.3 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists on 62.7% shooting from the field in the regular-season games that the two played against each other. Meanwhile, Dino averaged 21.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists on 54.1% from the field.
The one time that Radja made the postseason with the Boston Celtics, he put up 15.0 points and 7.0 rebounds against Shaq’s Orlando Magic, but O’Neal’s 22.5 points and 13.5 rebounds proved to be the difference-maker, as he led his team to the second round of the 1995 NBA Playoffs.
However, their head-to-head matchups during the 1994-95 regular season paint the perfect picture of why Radja was "the toughest white guy" Shaq ever faced. Across their five match-ups that season, Radja averaged 27.2 points and 9.0 rebounds on 56.6% shooting from the field.
"He couldn’t stop me," Radja said on an episode of 1-ON-1 with Basketball Network. "My third year, we had like five games against them and I averaged like 27 against Orlando. He definitely remembers that."