Shaquille O'Neal

When the Orlando Magic took Shaquille O'Neal first overall in the 1992 NBA draft, they got a 7-foot-1, 325-pound center who bent rims and backboards to his will — he was named Rookie of the Year for 1992–93 — but the league got something bigger: an athlete whose fame ran far beyond the court. Shaq's grin, size, and total lack of embarrassment made him a one-man '90s media conglomerate.

The résumé is glorious. Rap albums: Shaq Diesel (1993) went platinum, and Shaq Fu: Da Return (1994) went gold — real certifications for a starting NBA center. Movies: the basketball drama Blue Chips (1994), then Kazaam (1996), in which he played a 5,000-year-old genie, then the superhero flop Steel (1997). Video games: Shaq Fu (1994), a fighting game so widely mocked it became a collector's oddity. Sneakers and soda rounded out the empire — as he put it after his big free-agency move: 'I'm tired of hearing about money... I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.'

The basketball stayed elite through all of it. He anchored the U.S. team that won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996, and that same summer signed a seven-year, $121 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers — the move that set up his dominant three-peat of titles from 2000 to 2002, a run that belongs to the next decade's story. The '90s version is the one this entry remembers: the impossible rookie who was somehow also on your CD rack, your movie shelf, and your game cartridge, all at the same time, and seemed to be enjoying it more than anyone.