Rising Star Jaime Jaquez Jr. Shocks Fans with Epic Dunk on Shaq!

Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s rookie season with the Miami Heat has been more successful than most would’ve imagined. The newly-minted 23-year-old old — happy birthday, Jaime! — has established himself as a crucial part of the Heat rotation, capable of handling more minutes and more offensive burden when called upon, but also willing and able to provide Erik Spoelstra a solid and steady presence off the bench otherwise. Jaquez’s three highest-scoring games of the season have come against teams currently in the Eastern Conference Playoff picture — Philadelphia, Indiana, and Cleveland — but arguably the most impressive physical feat that Jaquez has accomplished in his first five months as a pro happened on All-Star Saturday Night, when the 6’6″ rookie out of UCLA jumped over one of the largest human beings who has ever stepped on an NBA floor.

What makes this dunk even more impressive was that according to Jaquez, he hadn’t even tried jumping over Shaquille O’Neal once before performing the dunk in the 2024 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

“Listen, I ain’t gonna lie. I didn’t practice jumping over Shaq,” Jaquez said following the Slam Dunk Contest, according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “I used Bam [Adebayo] as practice. But there’s a big height difference. So I was really nervous when I saw Shaq out there. I’ve seen him a bunch of times. But when he’s standing there, I was definitely feeling nervous.”

For context, Bam Adebayo‘s listed height is 6’9″, while Shaquille O’Neal was listed at 7’1″ during his playing career. And this doesn’t even take into account the fact that the remarkably large Shaquille O’Neal has much broader shoulders than the Heat’s undersized center does. Either way, the fact that a human being has the ability to jump over either Bam Adebayo OR Shaquille O’Neal proves that some folks are just built a little bit different than the rest of us.

The birthday boy, Jaime Jaquez Jr., is one of those folks.