Shaquille O'Neal's son Shareef O'Neal shares exciting snippets from life ft. Adin Ross, Cam Newton and more: IN PHOTOS

Shaquille O'Neal's eldest son, Shareef O'Neal has had quite the career so far undergoing open heart surgery in 2018 just as his college basketball career with the UCLA Bruins was starting.

Shareef recently shared exciting snippets of his life meeting various celebrities including Adin Ross, Cam Newton and LeBron James on his Instagram account.

Shareef O'Neal's unusual career

After opting to join the UCLA Bruins from Crossroads School California, Shareef O'Neal's college basketball career was rudely interrupted by an unfortunate, life-changing event.

O'Neal had a congenital heart defect which caused an artery to grow in the wrong place necessitating open-heart surgery for the basketball player in 2018.

Shareef O'Neal explained how far he had to come after the open heart surgery:

“My confidence was really gone when I got up from the surgery and I tried to walk on my own,” said Shareef O’Neal. “They kind of had to reteach me how to walk again ‘cause I tried to get up on my own to use the bathroom and I just fell down on the floor. I can’t even move my legs, I can’t walk. After that I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? Basketball is not an option."

O'Neal played for his father's alma mater, LSU and then the L. A Lakers during the 2022 NBA Summer League before joining G-League Ignite.

During an interview with ESPN, he made a shocking admission about his father's advice for him.

"He wanted me to stay in school," Shareef said. "He knows I'm working out with teams. But I'm not going to lie, we ain't talked about this. I'm kind of just going through it. I know he probably doesn't want me saying this, but sorry. We're both grown, we'll get past it."

During an appearance on the "Now For Later" podcast, Shareef O'Neal admitted that going pro was partly due to his academics not quite being up to scratch.

"I didn't have the best college degree," Shareef said. "It wasn't actually wasn't good at all. But, you know, I wanted to go pro. I wanted to try it. I feel like, as an adult, you gotta go through trials and errors. Like it didn't work, but keep trying something else."

After he was cleared to play after his surgery, Shareef revealed that he was scared to return to the court.

"I was scared and I knew my mom knew I was scared. Right before I left, I gave her a big hug. I couldn’t even imagine what her nerves were like that whole time," he said.

Shareef O'Neal has shown that he has gone back to a normal life with his recent social media activity after the traumatic event of 5 years ago.