My
friend Francis Villanueva may be a
good person in real-life but he is a dick when it comes to the affairs of the Boston Celtics.
Anyway,
I was trying to eat breakfast when he broke the news.
SHAQ ANNOUNCES
RETIREMENT.
Eyng?
This
reminds me of that squirrel image I saw.
Weeks
after my Boston Celtics was eliminated by his Miami Heat, many-time MVP
Shaquille O’Neal has accepted the fact that he is no condition to continue
playing in the NBA. I will take a
crack at my favourite team (next to the early and mid-90’s Bulls and ahead of
the late 90’s and early 2000’s Kings) but he is the fourth player to retire in
four years for the squad after Sam
Cassell, PJ Brown, and Rasheed Wallace.
I got
the opportunity to watch relic footages when he was still at LSU. In the 1993 NBA Draft, he was selected first by the Orlando in what was a deep draft that had Georgetown’s Alonzo Mourning coming in at second (Charlotte) and Duke’s Christian Laetner coming in at third (Minnesota). Mourning is a sure Hall
of Famer while Laetner is already a Hall of Famer (as part of the 1992 Dream Team) and could be inducted
as an individual if we consider that he was once named as the Greatest NCAA
Player in history.
These
players would play in one team at the tailend of their careers when Shaquille O’Neal
was traded to Miami for notably Lamar Odom and Caron Butler.
At
Orlando, he was a 7’1 monster that has power and speed. He can go
coast-to-coast and rim rattle because he could do so. It was academic for him
to win the Rookie of the Year Award
after scoring 28.2 points. Years
later, he will become a multi-media phenomenon with his face promoting Reebok and Pepsi, his acting (or lack thereof) on hand in Shazam, Steel, and the epic art film Blue Chips (haha), his singing voice previewed through his raps,
and promoting the game to millions of people thru basketball tours.
I
remember he brought a team to Manila to battle the PBA All-Stars and when sports turned into entertainment, he carried
then-Ginebra Bal David who stands
roughly 5’9 and made him slam the ball.
Shaq
however, wanted more. After losing to the Houston
Rockets in the 1995 NBA Finals
despite having a great starting five in Orlando revolving around him (Shaq at
center, Horace Grant at power
forward, Nick Anderson at small
forward, Dennis Scott at shooting guard,
and fellow Blue Chips co-star Penny
Hardaway at the point guard spot), Shaq went to the Los Angeles Lakers. Under Del
Harris and with stalwarts like Eddie
Jones, Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos, and a young Kobe Bryant, he was still ring-less.
And then
Kobe got better and Phil Jackson was
in the Lakers.
In the
late 90’s and the early 2000’s, Shaquille O’Neal had the chance to tow the
Lakers to the top in multiple occasions. At this point, he has ballooned to 300
pounds and it robbed him of his speed and agility but it also doubled his
strength on the inside. His orgasmic flushes were responsible for a lot of
embarrassing photo ops on other talented players.
After
the Finals debacle that robbed Karl
Malone and back then Gary Payton
a championship when they were surprisingly beaten by the Detroit Pistons, Shaq expressed his intentions to move elsewhere.
The move was triggered when the Lakers management chose Kobe over Shaq in the
battle of their disgruntled stars. Kobe has wanted to lead the group but with
Shaq around, he couldn’t. Besides, back then Shaq’s age was telling and Kobe’s
level is about to peak. Shaq was sent to the Miami Heat in 2004 where he found himself aligning with a young kid
with incredible basketball IQ named Dwyane
Wade.
Unlike
the Shaq-Kobe lovefest the two respected each other’s strengths and decisions.
Shaq was in fact responsible for Wade’s The Flash tag. Coming in as underdogs
to a trail-blazing Dallas squad, Miami turned the tables on the Mavs and
flipped the series from 0-2 to 4-2 in their favor. Shaq was again the man of
the moment in Miami but he brushed the thought and told the media that it was
Dwyane Wade who led the team to victory.
Shaq
never gave accolades to Penny Hardaway and much less to Kobe Bryant so let’s
just say it’s a big deal.
Shaq
again was disgruntled in Miami when the team failed to properly defend their
championship which poised O’Neal to look for another place to win a title.
However at this point he was overpaid and always injured. He was sent to Phoenix
which was considered a deal that was bad for the Suns. He then signed with
Cleveland in a way to pit the star of the 90’s with the star of the current
generation. This partnership ended when the Cavs failed to reach the finals and
Lebron James bailed to Miami.
In his
last season with the Boston Celtics, he finished his 19-year career with an average
of 9.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.7
assists, and 1.1 blocks which are all career-lows.
There
is a possibility that Shaq will set another bunch of career-lows the minute he
continue his fading career.
Don’t
be sad for Shaq. In fact, be envious.
Here are
his accomplishments:
1x NBA MVP
3x NBA FINALS MVP
4x NBA CHAMPION
8x ALL-NBA FIRST TEAM
2x ALL-NBA SECOND TEAM
4x ALL-NBA THIRD TEAM
3x ALL-STAR MVP
15x ALL-STAR
1993 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
3x ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM
2x NBA SCORING CHAMPION
Here
are his monikers:
SHAQ ATTACK
DIESEL
BIG DADDY
SUPERMAN
THE BIG AGAVE
THE BIG CACTUS
THE BIG SHAMROCK
THE REAL DEAL
SHAQ FU
THE BIG GALACTUS
Perhaps
the biggest flaw of his game is his free throws. There is a running gag that in
order for Shaquille O’Neal to fear you, you must dress like a free throw line. Shaq
is a career 53 percent free throw shooter. His field goal percentage is higher
than his charity gross.
But
fact is, I blame Shaq’s decline on his age, the injuries he developed
throughout the years, and his constant team switching. It was depressing for
him to still be team-less midway in the 2010 midseason. If only he stuck with
Miami instead of having stops in cities that never cared for him... or just
went to Boston instead of moving to Cleveland, the tailend of his career could
have been more different.
Nonetheless,
Shaq played a stellar career. I will probably rank him fourth in NBA history
when it comes to centers and tenth overall in the all-time list.
I wish
Shaq the best in his future endeavours.
Game
over.
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