Superman I've tried to read as much as I've been able to the last 24 hours to recapture just what he was about. He was utterly quotable, extremely charming and quick witted.
That's why I liked him. This, despite the fact that he incessantly tortured my Dallas Mavericks for the last 20 years, really. As a Los Angeles Laker, he held court like no other. As a member of the Miami Heat, he helped break our hearts.
Clearly, he was a man amongst boys on the court. However, it was the idea of Shaq that scared us the most. Especially considering our counter -- year after year -- was Shawn Bradley, the total opposite of Shaq (in just about every way), who was clearly as frightened of the Big Aristotle as we were.
Shaq was the No. 1 reason the Mavericks got Raef Lafrentz. I like to give Don-Donnie Nelson all the credit in the world. However, the Lafrentz project was the biggest disaster ever. The whole strategy was to sign a "center" that could roam the perimeter and hit shots. Ideally, this would drag Shaq out from underneath the basket, opening the lane and taking him off the glass.
Didn't work. Mostly because Lafrentz couldn't shoot and you could always just put someone else on him around the three-point line and take your chances with Shaq on a mismatch.
We forget, also, how athletic Shaq was. Haters like to point out that Shaq bullied his way through his career. This is a convenient opinion. Shaq was big, but more often than not it hurt him as he was called for an untold number of offensive and defensive fouls due merely to his girth.
He was quick, could leap and closed space surprisingly well. Don't believe me? Watch some footage of Shaq and then watch Yao Ming or some other center. If Ming had Shaq's quickness, the Houston Rockets (in theory) would be unstoppable.
Shaq was perpetually rumored to be on Mark Cuban's radar, mostly in his latter years. The man that tortured the city for so long was going to join our ranks. If nothing else, it'd sell tickets. Before he was traded to Miami, I didn't mind the move. The idea of trading for Shaq using Dirk Nowitzki was ridiculous, but the sentiment was smart.
Shaq was old, but he was never not usable. As a 35-year-old Phoenix Sun, he played in 75 games and averaged 18 points and eight rebounds. Yes, a shell of the pain he used to bring to opponents, but a useful player.
Shaq played 19 seasons. He averaged at least 20 points per game in his first 14. For 13 straight, he averaged double-digit rebounds. For another 12, he averaged at least two blocked shots a game.
Folks in their 30s or younger merely read about the insane, gaudy numbers put up in the pre-merger days and even the numbers put up by Larry Bird and Moses Malone. Averaging a triple-double or 20 rebounds a game. The mystique of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.
Shaq was that for us. In the 2000 playoffs, he averaged 30 points and 15 rebounds (and three assists ... he was a good passer) a game. He matched it the next season.
During the Heat's Finals run in 2006, he averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds a game. The Heat do not win that series without O'Neal.
Shaq breaking down late in his career was natural. Frankly, he has an unnatural body and maybe he keeps in shape better and prolongs his career, but not by much. Honestly, I get the feeling he'll be in rough shape for the rest of his life. Add on 8,000 minutes of playoff basketball, two years at LSU and then high school, by his late-30s it was expected he'd start to slow down drastically. I had zero problem with him finding a team that needed him. Or that he needed.
Legacy is everything and O'Neal has little to complain about. He was an athlete-celebrity before we really knew what that meant, before David Beckham or Lebron James.
There's a good chance that Shaq's an asshole. He did cheat on his wife. He also played for six different teams, some of whom decided they could live without him. The Lakers chose Kobe over him. The trek to Phoenix was thought to be disastrous due to his ability to be disgruntled.
Nonetheless, he will go down as one of the top three greatest athletes of our time. One of the guys we talk about 40 years from now in a Bill Russell-like light.
