Shaquille O'Neal's Son Shareef Talks Undergoing Heart Surgery at Age 18
Shaquille O'Neal's son, Shareef O'Neal, is opening up about undergoing open-heart surgery in 2018 when he was just 18 years old. The former UCLA/LSU player and now NBA G League player recalls thinking his basketball career was done and over with.Speaking to his NBA G League teammate, Eric Mika, on Mika's podcast, Shareef admitted to dreaming that his legacy would one day be defined by how he bounced back from heart surgery and realized his potential in spite of a scary ordeal that pumped the brakes on his collegiate sports journey at the University of California, Los Angeles.«I want that to be a part of my path. Like, 'He went through this when he was young to kind of alter his path but he made it back to a straight pathway again,'» the 23-year-old athlete explained.