From my vantage point, Shaquille O’Neal is exactly the type of player Kenny “The Jet” Smith alluded to when Smith became the commissioner of a new professional basketball league. Smith said the Professional Basketball League will have a winner-take-all format where players only get paid in the playoffs if they win. Smith, an analyst for “NBA on TNT,” said one of the biggest complaints he hears about NBA players is that their exorbitantly high, guaranteed salaries have robbed them of the inner drive to play hard. That’s O’Neal in a nutshell. Shaq and hard work are not on familiar terms. Only when the Big Diesel get his Big Feelings hurt does he shift his game into a higher gear.
In my military days, they called what O’Neal is doing ‘malingering.’ That’s another word for exaggerating or manufacturing illnesses and/or injuries in order to avoid working. Shaq has been doing this for years – and still getting PAID! The Big Lazy is not earning his Big Salary, and Pat Riley grew tired of it and put the Big Aristotle on Front Street because of it. That’s why they’re trading the Big Sorry and bringing in someone who will provide more than a Big Headache, along with a Big Hole in their payroll.
Shaq’s current level of play – or lack of play – lends further credence to Kobe Bryant’s blistering assessments of Shaq as a lazy, out-of-shape player who was jealous of Kobe’s rising cachet in the NBA. Phil Jackson validated Bryant’s sentiments earlier this year when he said Shaq had to be cajoled and cattle-prodded into earning his multimillion-dollar annual salary. In other words, Shaq is not a self-starter. Only when he feels slighted does Shaq rise to the level of the Hall of Fame, four-title winner that we knew him to be. So perhaps this embarrassing trade from the Miami Heat to the Phoenix Suns (in exchange for Shawn Marion) will provide the impetus for Shaq to play to the level his $20-million salary demands. Shaq’s renewed motivation just might put the Suns, who’ve lost the conference championship the last two years, over the hump to an NBA title. But only if the Big Lazy feels like it. –terry shropshire
