Shaq says goodbye as only he could | NBA.com ESPN has a 22 minute or so video clip of the press conference, it's pretty good. If the embedded video won't play, copy and paste the text: espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6624104 [ame="http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6624104"]Shaquille O'Neal Press Conference - ESPN Video - ESPN[/ame]
The thing about Shaq was that he is completely down-to-earth despite international fame. He always was. In Shaq's freshman year at LSU, I was sitting in the old Blimpie on State Street, having a sandwich when Shaq sat down at the next table with his own sandwich. We chatted for 10 minutes between bites, mostly about basketball and cars. He was really friendly and articulate when most athletes were remote, too cool, and only hung out with their posse. Shaq hung out with everybody at LSU. Totally at ease. No big head at all. I mean he wasn't an international superstar yet, but he was definitely Big Man On Campus. The boy was raised right.
A reasonable top 4 but I'd say its neck and neck between Wilt and Shaq for best of all time. Russell won all those titles but he was undersized...power forward type build. Shaq would have eaten him alive. Jabbar was formidable, but he was never the on-court presence Shaq was. The most under-appreciated thing about Shaq was how many defenders he commanded and how he altered the game. Absolutely amazing. If he'd had more sharpshooter teammates throughout his career to take advantage of cheating defenses he'd have won more titles. Watch the Sacramento playoff series when he was with the Lakers to see all 5 Kings routinely collapsing on him when he had the ball. Even in the NBA he was a man among boys. Detractors have often focused on his size and argued that alone accounted for his impact. Well, many many 7 footers in the NBA over the decades. If its just size, then they all should have been superstars too. Even more importantly, he sure seemed like a good guy with a big heart. I wish him well in the future, hope he takes care of himself and has a long life.
