After 19 seasons, Shaquille O’Neal announced his retirement via Twitter. The first thing that popped in my head when I saw everyone reacting to his statement on my news feed was “Wow…. I feel really old!” I lived in New Jersey as a child and my dad took me to my first basketball game in April 1992 when I was five years old.
The Nets played the Orlando Magic; I found the ticket recently and thought to myself how cool it was that I got to see Shaq play back then. On reflection, however, I realized that he wasn’t even drafted until June 1992! My first in-person opponent was a pre-Shaq Orlando team, and here he is 19 seasons later retiring. Like I said…. man I’m old.
Shaq was a special player, and one of the best to ever wear a Lakers uniform. He arrived in California the same time that my family moved back to our SoCal roots and I feel blessed that I got to watch his whole Lakers career. Two games stand out in particular to me, as I’m sure they do for many other Lakers fans. Game 7 vs. the Blazers in the 2000 Western Conference Finals- I don’t know if I’ll ever forget that Kobe-to-Shaq alley oop!
The second game was when he scored 61 points on his 28th birthday in 2000. It was such a monumental accomplishment in a championship and MVP year, and really fun to watch.
There are a million more Shaq moments that one could pick to talk about: his “Can you dig it?” speech at the 2000 Championship Parade, calling L.A the real capital of California, his monstrous dunks, his abysmal free throws, the fact that an entire defensive ploy (Hack-A-Shaq) was essentially created to combat him, and his nicknames. Oh the nicknames: The Big Aristotle. Superman. The Diesel. Shaq Daddy. The list is almost endless.
He was a giant on and off the court, and more importantly knew when to be silly and when to turn his competitive fire on. Shaq did so much for the City of Los Angeles and as a fan I will be forever grateful. He helped bring us our first championship in 12 years and was an instrumental part in the Lakers’ threepeat, a rarer accomplishment than one might think.
Next Page: The Big Disappointment
I was disappointed after he left L.A, and it made my head roll to see him win a championship with Dwayne Wade in Miami, but to be perfectly honest I never really hated him. I never even really disliked him until he started talking smack about Kobe and the organization. I liked Shaq when he was a Laker. I liked him a lot…. I just didn’t like him as much as Kobe.
Kobe was my favorite, and it always seemed that you were either a Shaq or Kobe person. No one ever liked both equally; you had to fall into one of two camps. It reminds me of middle school- girls always said you could like either NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys. You had to pick one, you couldn’t like both, and whichever one you chose somehow defined your personality. I of course played devil’s advocate: I liked Backstreet most, but I liked NSYNC as well, and that’s how I feel about Shaq and Kobe.
I will admit, I was very disappointed in Shaquille this past season when he joined the hated Boston Celtics. It felt like a stab in the heart, to see a Laker great go to the Dark Side just to chase rings and elongate his career. It seemed like a bad joke at first- a poor Photoshop job even- the first time I saw him in that green uniform.
As the season wore on though, it became sadder to me than anything. He had a number of injury problems, and even when he was on the floor he wasn’t the same dominant player he used to be. I’m still irked that he joined the Celtics at all, but at least it didn’t end in a ring.
I fully believe that he deserves to have his jersey retired in Staples Center and was pleased when the Lakers organization announced their intentions to eventually do just that. I do believe that he should pay some sort of time penalty for all his ring chasing and especially his shenanigans in Beantown though. If the Lakers planned on waiting until he was in the Hall of Fame, as is customary, that’s five years right there. I say we tack on an extra year at least.
I’m not in the camp that we have to wait for Kobe’s jersey in the rafters first; that makes no sense. He might end up being the greatest Laker of all time, but Shaq is older, had a longer career, and contributed mightily to the purple and gold. It’s a chronological thing to me: it makes sense that if Shaq retires first, he gets his jersey hung up first.
Next Page: The Big Accomplishment
Shaq straddled three eras of basketball. He got to play in the golden age of the early 1990’s against Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajawon, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson. They’re all long gone and retired, having moved on to other basketball endeavors. He got to play with Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, and Grant Hill and battled against the likes of Tim Duncan, Yao Ming and Allen Iverson in the new millennium.
He has has even bridged the gap at the dawning of a new era in the NBA. He’s played with Dwayne Wade and LeBron James, and watched Dwight Howard take his Superman mantle in Orlando. Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce are the old dogs now. The Class of 2003 and later is rising.
I realized that the main narrative thread that was woven throughout my entire basketball life was Shaquille O’Neal, and now he is gone. It is a strange new world this morning, and I look forward to seeing what this champion has in store for the future. One can only hope that he’ll join Chuck, E.J., Kenny and Chris Webber on Inside the NBA. That would be one entertaining roundtable!
Shaquille O’Neal is a champion through and through. He has too many accomplishments to list, including 4 championships, a regular season MVP, 3 Finals MVPs and a gold medal. He brought a smile to our face with his antics, and that is how I will choose to remember him as a Lakers fan.
The further removed we get from the name-calling after 2004 and the team hopping in his last few seasons, the easier it will be to appreciate what he did for us as Lakers fans and as basketball fans. People will inevitably view him through rose-colored glasses as the years go by, but that’s okay because he continued the great and time-honored tradition of dominant Lakers big men and entertained us all for 19 years.
[phpbay], 3 , “”[/phpbay]