shaq-fu.

now i’ve never been a fan of shaq. i remember when the big fella entered the league. i got his upper deck rookie card and thought the design was iller than ill. i didn’t know anything about the player, only that he was supposed to be dominant. you first had to get this one card in one of the packs that i think had either shaq’s silhouette or shadow, or maybe just another players. once you obtained that you would then mail it in and get it back with a hole punched in it along with the rookie card. i watched him in orlando, la, and miami. i watched him and found every clip of him shattering a backboard, or tearing down the entire hoop, to be most satisfactory. i watched him only grow sideburns. some may not remember that hairdo he was rocking, but all he had were sideburns, everything else was skin. he bugged the most in la. they would just toy with the west. get webber’s hopes up in sacramento and then made him watch his team’s lead dwindle as the big aristotle dropped jump hook after jump hook on divac. he’d push everyone around. the frustration would make me want to say bad words. the only thing that could stop him back in the day was the three-headed monster that the bulls would unleash on him (luc longley, will perdue, and bill wennington). punishing shaq with their 18 fouls that they had to give. he was young then. he was swept by hakeem’s rockets in the most boring nba finals in my history. i guess the la days made me not like him because he could not be stopped. it was almost like they were cheating. i decided that i would never like him as a basketball player.


i then watched the suns dominate the spurs the other night. i watched shaq get up and down the court. i saw him come out in the second half and drop jump hooks on tim duncan. it took me back to the days where i could not stand him. the feelings of frustration turned into understanding. he is now playing for the good guys. he’s not as dominant so i feel like the suns aren’t cheating, but will be legit 2008 nba champions. he’s clean shaven. he looks like a big kid. a baby. big baby shaq. when you see him sitting on the bench with four fouls you’re feeling sorry for him because he looks so sad. like he wants so badly to make you proud. i watched his post-game interview and listened to him crack jokes and felt like i could be friends with the big man. not just like “i saw you at a party” type of friend , but like a “hey, shaq, you want to come over and play me in sorry”-type of friend. he would say “yes” because we had played sorry together before and had a lot of fun doing so. it was this game that made me realize that me and mr. o’neal are very much alike. we are both constantly trying to reinvent ourselves. trying to give ourselves new nicknames and hoping they stick. we would both jump at the chance of playing the lead role in terrible movies without even reading the script or looking at the wardrobe (kazaam, steel). we both want so badly to have successful rap careers. i would absolutely love to have my own hand-to-hand combat fighting video game like the big shactus (shaq-fu). we both share a deep love for money. shaq makes more money in a minute missing free throws at the line than i have made in my entire lifetime. i don’t know what’s more discouraging, that fact or that he was offered another leading role in a movie after his performance in kazaam. i ain’t mad. he’s my friend. after the spurs game all i wanted to do was go back to 1994 and pick up a pair of shaqnosis. that’s another thing we have in common. if i were to create my own shoe in 1994 it would absolutely look the exact same as the shaqnosis. i can just picture shaq saying “make ‘em look ridiculous” meaning bananas, dope, or cool, but reebok took it literally and created the most ridiculous shoe on the market. that reminded me of all the shoes that were big back in the day. kemp’s kamikazes, the penny’s, all the jordan’s, air bacons, filas (hill and stackhouse), the nikes that said “air” really big. i never owned any of those. i was fine with that. i remember i did own a pair of converse shoes. i didn’t think anyone in the nba was sporting them until i got a trading card of latrell sprewell and he was wearing them. i then referred to them as “my sprewells.” mr. sprewell ended up attempting to strangle his coach a season later. we all make mistakes, my purchase of the sprewells and shaq’s shoe design were not mistakes though.


all i’m trying to say is that you have a friend in shaquille o’neal. if he doesn’t help mr. nash get a ring this year our only hope is a healthy oliver miller coming out of retirement, or maybe the breakout season from eric piatkowski that we’ve been waiting for the previous 20 season. way too risky. we’ve got it. do it for joe kleine, uncle chuck barkley, kj, elliot perry, richard dumas, bo outlaw, frank johnson, wesley person, thunder dan, wayman tisdale, danny manning, and all the suns that never did. please. and never stop making movies.