Basketball legend mourns loss of close friend: ‘He was somebody I looked up to’

Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal is mourning the loss of a “dear” friend.

During part of an episode of “NBA on TNT,“ the NBA star reacted to the passing of Milwaukee Bucks owner and NBA icon Junior Bridgeman. Bridgeman died on March 11.

According to ESPN, Bridgeman was 71 and died of a heart attack while at an event in Louisville, Kentucky.

ESPN said that many Louisville media outlets reported that “Bridgeman grabbed his chest at one point during a fundraising luncheon, expressing that he believed he was suffering a heart attack,” the post reads. “The stations, including WLKY and WAVE, reported that emergency medical personnel were called.”

O’Neal said Bridegman helped him develop his financial knowledge so he didn’t “go broke” and modeled his business plans after the advice Bridgeman gave him.

“This one really hit hard for me,” O’Neal said. “A lot of people don’t know this, but I’ve patterned my whole business acumen after Junior Bridgeman. They always tell us stories about 75 percent of athletes, zero to five years after they’re done playing, go broke.”

“And I never wanted to be that,” O’Neal said. “So, I started looking at people. Michael (Jordan), of course, Magic (Johnson). But I remember one time a Forbes list came out, and I was like, ‘I know them all on this list, all the commercials I do,’ and I saw his name. I reached out to him, and I started talking.”

O’Neal said that Bridgeman was someone he “looked up” to and learned a lot from their time spent together.

“I know I get a lot of credit, but if it wasn’t for Bridgeman, I wouldn’t have known where to start,” he said.

Bridgeman grew into one of the most successful NBA careers, becoming a billionaire philanthropist and, more recently, a minority owner of a team he once played for, the Milwaukee Bucks.