On Shaq

Superman

Shaquille O'Neal announced his retirement yesterday, via Twitter.

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.

The coaching carousel goes 'round

Uncle Remus

Reason No. 435 as to why Wade Phillips is the worst coach in Dallas Cowboys history: The defense, which he was going to put over the edge, is in shambles.

Remember, under Bill Parcells, the defense wasn't bad. It was quite good. But it wasn't Super Bowl-calibre. You didn't have defensive ends flying around the edges. There wasn't bone-crunching sacks, fumbles and interceptions. The Cowboys were really solid. Not great.

Phillips was supposed to change that. Not only did all of that not happen, but things actually backfired into the complete opposite direction.

The secondary is a COMPLETE disaster. The front three are not as good as we thought. The linebackers are A) thin and B) old.

Jerry Jones made a very poignant comment following the loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Pissed, he said that Jason Garrett's position was not secure because he had as much to do with the 1-7 start as Phillips or anyone else.

Garrett's here. Everyone else ...

Ray Sherman is out. Paul Pasqualoni was hired by Connecticut to coach its team. Tight ends coach John Garrett's interviewing with Miami. O-line coach Hudson Houck's retiring and former Cowboys great Dan Campbell's interviewing there.

The Dallas Cowboys, if nothing else, will have a new look to them. Kinda.

To Pasqualoni, yes, he was dealt some bad cards and had to try to make better smelling chicken shit out of chicken shit. Still, I don't understeand what Connecticut sees in him.

Now, Jason Garrett must find a defensive coordinator. Vic Fangio and Greg Manusky were initially interviewed. Both are thought to wind up with San Francisco and San Diego, respectively.

Garrett now will supposedly interview Remus "Rob" Ryan, Rex' twin brother and Buddy's other son, for the spot along with former Cowboys great Ray Horton, the current secondary coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If you don't know Ryan, you've more than likely seen him. He looks ridiculous. Mostly unshaven and quite obese, he sports a flowing head of grey hair. It's like a mane.

Games, however, are won by execution. Not hair.

Honestly, Ryan seems like a guy that's gotten gigs based on the reputation of his brother and his father.

His best year came in 2010 -- with Eric Mangini gone, Ryan is probably not welcome in Cleveland -- when he took a bad Browns team and had them 14th in points allowed in the league. His defense was also near the top in interceptions. Unfortunately, they were ranked 22nd in yards allowed and near the botton in sacks and forced fumbles.

Ryan spent five ignominious years in Oakland before that. And they sucked.

Maybe Ryan's numbers are the product of the team. But don't good coordinators, over time, make areas on a bad team, good?

Horton kind of rose along with Mike Tomlin in the organization. He was named defensive backs coach by Tomlin in 2007. Tomlin, of course, knows good defensive backs coach having been in Tampa Bay from 2001-2005 during their heyday.

As defensive backs coach in Pittsburgh, Horton had the best pass defense in the league in 2008. That slipped to 16th in 2009 and back up to 12th in 2010.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Horton. He's an up and comer and, seemingly, hungry. He has something to prove. That's kinda what this team needs more than anything.

A perspective: Jere Lehtinen

Jere Let The Right One In

With little fanfare, Jere Lehtinen retired the other day.

I didn't read some glowing column in The Dallas Morning News. Not many TV or radio segments, not that they really care. Too much attention being placed on Cliff Lee's money grab.

Remember, Lee didn't win a ring while in Dallas-Fort Worth. Lehtinen did.

In the grand scheme of things, Lehtinen is probably the second-most important Dallas Star in its current state (as a Dallas team, not Minnesota). Probably one of the top 15 or so Dallas-Fort Worth athletes of the past 20 years. Has to be.

Yet, you couldn't find a guy who avoided big contract talks, media brush-ups, shit talk and anything that would call attention to himself. "Quiet" would be an understatement.

This may be due to him being Finnish and probably not speaking the best of English.

Arguably, my favorite Lehtinen experience probably came while attending a game and enjoying a nice game of "Finnish or Gibberish," in which a Finnish Dallas Star says something and the audience is asked to guess if it is Finnish or gibberish.

Lehtinen did his talking on the ice.

He wound up with 514 total points during his NHL career. He was drafted by the Minnesota North Stars in 1992 and made his NHL debut in 1996, when he was name the Stars' (then in Dallas) rookie of the year.

During the Stanley Cup year, Lehtinen probably had his best year. He notched 20 goals and 32 assists. In the playoff run, he scored 10 goals.

The next season, the injuries started. He missed all but 17 games due to a bum ankle. He put together another good six or seven seasons. Really solid. Nothing flashy. Due diligence. As time wore on, the injuries mounted and he missed more and more time. The Stars held on too long to 1998-99 and this included waiting on Lehtinen to come back from the latest setback.

His play was rewarded. He won the Frank J. Selke Trophy three times (1998, 1999, 2003). Lehtinen was named to two All-Star games.

For the Finnish hockey team, he won four Olympic medals (three bronze, a silver) and four World Championship medals (three silver, a gold). He's only one of six hockey players with four Olympic medals.

He also met his wife at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994. Not bad.

Bottomline: Lehtinen was really good and those great Stars teams of the late-1990s and early-2000s were a mirror of the way that Lehtinen worked the boards, in front of the net and at the blue line. Every professional team in this city could use a Lehtinen.