SHAQ TWEETS, "I'M RETIRING"

""I won't be devalued," Shaq said. "Never, ever devalued. I will never take less than what I am worth.

"I'm the one that's bringing the players in anyway. And I can bring in players for no money. I've done that before. I've been the general manager of this team for the last two years.

"So I don't want to hear that crap about blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah. Because I'm the one who's bringing them in. I'm the one making the phone calls."

"Shaquille O'Neal once famously yelled out to Lakers owner Jerry Buss to "pay me" in the middle of a preseason game."

http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/19893/thoughts-on-shaq-retiring

Oh yeah, he's a great guy. Class act.

 

I agree with this. The knock on him from curmudgeons will always be that he wasn't in shape and didn't play full seasons, but he was a god damn huge human being. I sometimes feel like you don't want to tinker if it's working, and since he was a monster for Orlando, L.A. and portions of his Heat years, why screw with a good thing? Even with all of his "weaknesses," he was one of top five to top 10 centers of all-time, and his strengths were so strong that it was nearly impossible to find someone to guard him.

 

He recruited them Payton and Karl Malone; that worked out pretty well. Better than Mitch Kupchak throwing millions at Steve Blake, Devean George and other stiffs.

 

I remember watching him at LSU, dunking all over the place as a freshman, Vitale shrieking like a lunatic "HE'S ONLY 18 YEARS OLD!!" over and over, and realizing that he was only a year older than me.

 

Finished his career 1-22 on 3PFGs.

 

I suspect "curmudgeon" translates as "actually watched him play" during that era.

He went from "a god damn huge human being" to "God, is he FAT!" The human body isn't really designed to be 7'3", which is why guys that size always have some variation of toe/foot/ankle/knee issues. He exacerbated that horribly later in his career by being a big fat load. Dude was embarrassing in his last days with the Lakers. He got in shape when he went to Miami because he was pissed and had something to prove. He proved it... and then got fat again.

I generally like Shaq, and at his best he was an enormously dominating player (with more skill than he generally gets credit for). He seems like a genuinely very good guy off the court, away from basketball. But it's absolutely fair to point out that he pissed away big chunks of his career by turning into a fatass.

 

40/91 -- and yes, I knew Slava Medvedenko

 

YOU WILL RESPECT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HOOPZ!

 

If he doesn't make some serious effort to lose some of that weight now that he's retired, he might not make it to 50. And now that he's not playing, it's going to be that much more difficult for him to lose weight.

 

He didn't make that effort when money, championships, fame and his legacy as a basketball player were on the line. What on Earth makes you think he's going to start now?

 

YouTube the one. It's hilarious. I remember it well.