Transcription
I'm at peace, so the gray Shaquille O'Neal is one of the great enigmas in the last 25 years in regards to the NBA. Because even though he scored almost 30,000 points and won four championships, I think that the consensus perception in regards to Shaquille is that he left a lot on the table. He easily could have scored 40,000 points and won six or seven championships had he devoted himself more to his physical conditioning.
All that being said, he's still in my top 10 greatest players of all time because at one point in time, in the late late 90s into the early 2000s, he was most likely the most dominant player that I've ever seen play. Certainly not the greatest, but the most physically dominant and domineering. He would throw great players around. He used to ragdoll David Robinson and Tim Duncan and make them look like nothing for a couple of years. And to me, it's just unfortunate that Shaq was not as focused on his physical conditioning as he probably should have been because I think that he would have broken every record in the book.
Now, in the aftermath of his retirement, I find that he often gets overlooked. Sometimes it's because of his style of play and his ginormous size. It makes it very easy for people to try to minimize what he brought to the table. He was extremely skilled, even though his dimensions made him awkward. He was always seven feet tall with a size 22 shoe. It's amazing how nimble he was with feet that big.
And once again, he does make my top ten because as I've already stated, in my parameters for play to being my top ten greatest of all time, you have to be able to argue that he was the greatest player ever at his position. And I think that you can make an argument that Shaq was the greatest center ever. It's not as extensive an argument as other players in my top ten, but you can make an argument for it because at one time, he was certainly the most dominant player in the NBA. And he certainly has a very strong argument, a very cogent argument, that he was the most dominant player in NBA history.
So anyway, he's going to talk about his greatest moments and also his lowest moments in the NBA. And I'm gonna chime in. Shaq, you're up next. What happened on your birthday in what, in 2000? All right, because of this juvenile Verdi Scott, I was a party thrown full on this day. I broke all of my rituals. My ritual consists of about to shoo, go home to 30 club services with extra mayo. That was the appetizer. Take a nap, go play, go dominate. You know, Clippers, we always man on the van beat himself. You know what the most amazing thing about Shaquille was is that when he got around 30 years old, of course, he started to have weight problems. But for those of you brothers who remember when he first came into the NBA in 1992, all they would talk about was how low his body fat was. And I think that people who only got to see Shaq play in the championship years with the Lakers and thereafter, they don't fully have a grasp of the type of physical phenomena that Shaq was when he first entered the NBA, tearing down rims and breaking backboards. And once again, one of the main storylines in regards to Shaq was the fact that he has such a low body fat percentage at his size. That's what the commentators will constantly talk about. That was until, of course, he started to fill out.
And oftentimes, many of Kobe Bryant's more ardent fans, they love to state that Kobe was the better or more important player in the LA Lakers three-peat. And there are less that Shaq never won a championship until he played with Kobe. Well, the fact of the matter is that Shaq never won a championship until he played with Phil Jackson. That was the main factor and Shaquille O'Neal finally getting over the hump. Because the fact of the matter is, if we want to go there, that it took him longer to get to the finals on the Lakers than it did for him to get to the finals on the Orlando Magic or with the Miami Heat. So Kobe Bryant was not the x-factor in Shaq winning a championship. It was Phil Jackson. He was the one who taught those guys how to win. He helped instruct Shaq on how to lead. Shaq was able to reach the finals on the Orlando Magic in his third year. He was able to reach the finals on the Miami Heat in his second year. It took him four years to get to the finals on the LA Lakers. So clearly, one can make the case, one can make the argument that Kobe Bryant in his first four years was not as good a sidekick to Shaquille O'Neal as Penny Hardaway or Dwyane Wade were. But that's an argument for another day. Once again, when I make my statements.
[Music] [Laughter] [Music]
Because he spent the whole day prepping for the party. Eyes then all about they from Chicago. You know about the Chicago plays. As a matter of fact, in the future, that NBA TV did with Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson, they showed a photo with Isaiah Thomas wearing an all-pink suit. When the bow is the staple that side. So I get this game, huh? Yes. So you know, the game starts and the Clippers, Achilles, what triple killer. And then, so he stops the other at me and all the guys after the apron sticking me. Then I try the hack-a-Shaq thinking I have to get my elbow and like my name was Dennis Rodman. You know, as players like, you know, you give certain good passes. Kobe go give six, go give six. The only thing that upset me about the game is I think we have five minutes left. I think I can for 70 or possibly 80. But again, we know Phil took me out. Well, finish the story. Shaq says, what you always say? You think that Phil Jackson took you out because he did not want you to pass Michael Jordan's record? That is what Shaq has always stated in regards to his belief as to why Phil Jackson took him out with five minutes left when he has 61 points. Shaq claims that Phil Jackson did not want him to pass Michael Jordan's scoring mark, which makes no sense because Michael Jordan has 69 points against the Cavaliers in an overtime game. And I'm pretty sure that Phil Jackson did not have the foggiest idea how many points Michael Jordan scored. As a matter of fact, the player who has scored the most points in any game in the 90s was David Robinson, who had 71 points against the Clippers. What Michael? So great day. So 61 and 23 days. 61, 23. Oh, something else. What knows that I almost forgot to mention that kind of ticked me off? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was, I guess, it was a special assistant coach. So once again, it's a shame to me that the NBA could be talking about making Becky Hammon a head coach in the NBA for an NBA franchise, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has to resort to participating in Dancing with the Stars just to keep his name out there because he cannot get a job as an NBA coach, not even a head coach, just an assistant coach. He put his head down. So now I'm gonna make Kareem with Shaq. He had a very refined low post game. He does not get much credit for, but he had a great drop step. Story about David Robinson, who didn't do Jabbar does not look good. I think he was talking to Keith about how to stop me. Watch it. So like, every time I did a move, I look at him and he just goes, "That would have been a great battle to see." Kareem Abdul-Jabbar against Shaquille O'Neal would have been finesse against power. But the party was that it was at an aquarium. Hmm. It was nice. And I'll pull out the night white convertible Rolls-Royce. Shaq's such a fool, man. Okay, how do you get from that to the low point? What was the low point? In his, I wish that there was better communication between me and the other people. Well, let's be for real for a moment. Shaq, you and Kobe were never going to get along at that stage of both of your respective careers. Kobe was like a meteor shooting upward. He was trying to maximize what he thought he could do in the NBA. He wanted to win scoring titles like his idol Michael Jordan did, and you were getting in the way. He did not want to be seen as just your sidekick. And on your end, you wanted to make sure that you cemented your legacy as the greatest big man in NBA history, and you did not like this young whippersnapper not showing the proper level of obeisance to you, the proper level of subservience to you. So you guys were never going to work. All it was going to come down to was who was the older player because that was going to be the one who was going to lose that battle. It was you.
There's this silly narrative that I think gets perpetuated by the mainstream liberal sports media that the LA Lakers of the early 2000s left some championships on the table. I completely disagree. I think that they've maximized their winning potential. It wasn't like they won the championship in 2002 and then traded Shaq. They actually tried to win championships in '03 and '04. They lost both times. The situation in the locker room became untenable. The chemistry, or lack thereof, just totally tore the team apart. And then you had that issue with Kobe and Karl Malone, in which Karl Malone tried to hit on Kobe's wife. There was no way in the world that that team was ever going to win any more championships. So they traded Shaq at the right time. Where Shaq is truly upset about is that he thought he was the top dog on the Lakers, and Jerry Buss showed him otherwise. No, you topped out at three. I think that you guys reached your maximum potential there. I think that if you would have kept your body in better shape, you could have won more championships with Dwyane Wade. And I look at what the client has done the last few years. I always said myself, you know, I think if we could have worked it out, stayed together, we are together, you know, one, six, seven, maybe eight. So we win three in a row, then I think we lose, and then we have to, you know, regroup. So nicely, a couple, couple Asian veterans, I enjoy where I go get GP, go get Karl Malone. So, so now we have like a super team, and they're there to, you know, make sure of me and the young fellows. No play. So we will have a great season, but somehow we make it to the finals. Karl gets hurt. I'm having a great fun. As I think I'm after 36-20 against Detroit. I remember very vividly when the LA Lakers first put that quote on for super team together in the 2003-2004 NBA season, there were talks by many members of the mainstream liberal sports media that they may have a viable chance, a real opportunity to surpass the Chicago Bulls' 72-win season. As that season played along, one could see very quickly that the Lakers had little to no chemistry. Gary Payton and Karl Malone were struggling with the triangle offense because what the triangle offense does is it just makes you a component. And unless you're Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant, you basically have to wait for your chance to shoot the basketball. You have to get yours off the glass, basically. And the triangle offense is not good for point guards. So a guy like a Gary Payton, who's used to averaging 19 or 20 a game, eight or nine assists a game, he does not have the opportunity to distribute the ball as he did in previous offensive systems. He basically has to sit on the outside and wait for Shaq or Kobe to kick the basketball out to him. So that truly started to minimize the impact that a Gary Payton could bring to that team, and he really was not very effective. So I was not surprised when the Lakers got to the finals and got smoked by the Detroit Pistons. Why shouldn't say I wasn't surprised? I was surprised, but after game two, I knew that the Pistons had too much chemistry for the Lakers. And Chauncey Billups is one of the more underrated leaders in NBA history. He was a phenomenal leader, and both he and Hamilton thoroughly outplayed Kobe Bryant in that series. Let me rewind this back just a little bit. A season, so how we make it to the finals, Karl gets hurt. I'm having a great time. As I think I'm a virgin 36-20 against Detroit, but they had on number. And then after that, after we lose, you know, I figure I was gonna work it out. It, you know, we're gonna get it cracking again. Me and him have a conversation, and you know, Magic's, you know, starting to chatter about getting involved. So I figure we ought to have a conversation and work it out. I'm gonna decree with Jerry. You know what you really thought was that you were not expendable? And brother, at that time period, you know, at 34, 35 years old, I believe that would have been Shaq's 12th season, so it would have been about 32 or 33 years old, and you were starting to break down. They said to themselves, Kobe Bryant has basically let us know that it's going to be him or Shaq. So they chose to move you. That's all it boils down to, bro. And you thought that you were not expendable when you were. We're taking all phone calls. Won't you kill him? And I know at that point, it was, you know, that they wanted to go in a different direction. But that for me was probably my part of the low point because I really wanted to end my career with the Lakers. I thought at that point when I got traded, I thought that that would jeopardize me going upstairs with personal voice. I mean, I thought that would jeopardize maybe me having a statue. On this, I was very upset, very sad. And you're still mad to this day at Kobe Bryant? But you know that you have to move past it, or you'll look like a bitter old man.
I've stated this in videos in the past. Shaquille O'Neal was smart enough to understand that when he did get traded to the Miami Heat, that he had to allow Dwyane Wade to be the lead guy. He had to coach and coax Dwyane Wade into understanding that he had to be the main guy on offense, and that he would play a supplementary role. Because he knew essentially that if he and Dwyane Wade had developed an acrimonious relationship or a rapport that was filled with animosity, like the rapport that he had with Kobe Bryant on the Lakers, or the rapport that he had with Penny Hardaway on the Orlando Magic, all fingers will be pointed at him. There's no way in the world that you go to three separate locations and you have a beef with three separate top-level guards, and it's not you. You could say two times is a coincidence, not three times. What is it going to be? It's going to be a trend. The breaking point was that Kobe did not like that you came into camp every season out of shape. That's what the true breaking point was. Beyond that, he did not want to be recognized as your sidekick. He had to have at least one season where he had an unmitigated green light to take whatever shot he wanted. He got that for two years. He realized that was not truly what he wanted because he got it out of his system. Once he got it out of his system, he was ready to go back to winning again. I was getting older. I was just coming off toe surgery. I wanted a pan-Asian superstar. And the good thing about dealing with Jerry Buss, he was honest. He said, "Hey man, we only 30. You were 30, but you know, one day you're 30, when you're 33, 34." And I respected that about him. So I understood the business. I understand what happened. Look at Shaq's face. He still has a better look on his face in regards to how things ended with the Lakers. Good. You could tell he loved playing with them back a little bit. That is the most pertinent component of what Shaq is trying to illustrate and what he's saying right now, which is that Kobe Bryant did not want to be up under him for his whole career. He was heading into his mid-20s, and he knew that it's now or never. Kobe came into the NBA in 1996. He was 17 years old. He played for eight years with Shaq. He was 24, 25 years old. He said to himself, "I need a couple of seasons where I could just jack up shots and nobody could say anything. I need that to get out of my system. I have to win a couple of scoring titles so I can feel like what it was like to be Michael Jordan. And then after that, we can bring in some other guys and can go back to winning." That's all it was ever about. That is why Kobe drove Shaq off the team. That's why he drove the rest of his teammates off the team because he needed to have that feeling. He was almost like one of these chicks that got into an arranged marriage when she was 16 years old, and she ran away from her husband. I wanted to run to every club and bar and be a freak for years, so and then marry a man after that. That's how Kobe was. Unfortunately for him, it paid off. But once again, when you look at Shaq, you can see that he's still a bit bitter at how things ended in LA. Well, it's really not that amazing, seeing as he spent approximately half his career wearing both jerseys, and he deserved to get both jerseys retired. But anyway, that's it on the video regarding Mr. Shaquille O'Neal and what his highest and lowest moments were in his career. Peace.