MIAMI, Flor. – In some ways, training camp will be a lot easier than this part of Shaquille O’Neal’s Miami experience.
In training camp, he won’t be asked to stand wearing his Heat uniform and fur-lined slippers under the scalding sun while a photographer and his assistants poke and pose him for more than 30 minutes.
In training camp, he won’t be asked to step into a pool in full uniform, submerge his head in the water about 15 times and then smile wide each time as if the chlorine wasn’t stinging his eyes.
In training camp, he won’t conduct interviews poolside while hotel workers from the Mandarin Oriental come by with towels to wipe the sweat collecting on his face.
No, this is nothing like camp. This is a Sports Illustrated cover shoot – one of the final distractions O’Neal has to deal with before his true Miami Heat experience begins Tuesday with the opening of camp.
Sitting poolside after all the camera shutters have stopped clicking and the photographer has stopped barking childish instructions such as, ‘Let’s see those big eyes,’ O’Neal, with his feet dangling in the water, has plenty on his mind.
He’s about to embark on a journey with his third team, and he can’t help but be excited about the prospects. He’s practically giddy about being back in Florida, this time in a city that he calls the perfect mixture of Orlando and Los Angeles. But there’s also some bitterness lingering in O’Neal – bitterness toward his old Lakers organization and of course, toward his former teammate, superstar Kobe Bryant.
And when O’Neal has a lot on his mind, don’t bother trying to interrupt him with silly things like questions. Just like he controls the paint, O’Neal will dominate the conversation.
O’Neal can’t say enough about his new boss, Heat president Pat Riley, and the team Riley has put together.
“I had a conversation with Pat and I’m looking at the team, looking at what Dwyane Wade did last year,” O’Neal said. “All they needed was one piece. I’m that piece. I need them, and they need me.
“Pat is smart. He knows what he’s doing. He has given me a lot of shooters, a lot of role players and a lot of hard workers. I’ve got like three or four 6′ 9” big guys that aren’t even looking for plays being called. They’re rebounding. Malik Allen can hit that wide-open jumper. We’ve got me, we’ve got Eddie Jones. We’re straight.
“It’s not something I’m going to talk about all year because I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch, but I was looking on paper the other day and I like it.
“I’ve been getting passes from dudes that I haven’t seen in a while. I actually have to get used to them. Like Thursday, I was standing in the paint and Damon Jones is coming down the middle of the lane. I’m used to guys not even dropping it off, but he threw it by the rim and I said, ‘Oh,’ and went up and got it. I’m going to get easy buckets like that.”
O’Neal’s next diatribe is dedicated to Wade. The 7′ 1″ center has played with Penny Hardaway in his prime and reached the NBA Finals with the Magic. He played with Bryant and won three NBA titles. And somehow, O’Neal can make Wade sound even better.
“He’s a good dude, and I can tell his game was brought up the right way,” O’Neal said. “A lot of kids nowadays do the And 1 stuff and it’s all about that; ‘I want to put the ball between my legs and I’m going to score.’ John Wooden told me a great player is someone that can make other people around him better. We’ve just been messing around playing on the American Airlines Arena practice court, and he has been hitting me with passes I ain’t seen in eight years. And I’m hitting him with stuff he hasn’t seen from a big man. So he already likes playing with me, and I already like playing with him.
“All he needs is a dude like me to let him know he’s got it and let him know I’ve got his back, and you’re going to see things you’ve never seen from him. I’m going to pull it out of him. I know how to do it because I’ve done it before.
“Now, the mistakes that I made with my other two sons, Penny and Kobe, I won’t make with D-Wade. The first day I got here I had a conversation with D-Wade. I said, ‘Listen, what happened between me and Bryant out there in Los Angeles can never happen between me and you. We can’t let them break us up and we can’t break each other up.'”
Which brings O’Neal to a much less pleasant topic. Irreconcilable differences between he and the Lakers led to a messy divorce, one that included public barbs between he and his former team’s general manager, Mitch Kupchak, and some especially choice words for old running mate Bryant.
The past two years weren’t the best of times for O’Neal – and he’ll tell you about it.
“The year I missed 12 games, 2002, they had a doctor that couldn’t do my surgery because he didn’t have enough insurance. There were two types of surgery: You could cut that bone off and do it that way, and I would have been out the whole year. They didn’t want to do that. ‘I don’t want to be the doctor that cuts Shaq’s toe off and he might not come back and play. I don’t have the insurance for it.’ So I had to go find my own doctor. And the Lakers knew it. They said, ‘He did it to miss training camp.’ If I don’t want to go to training camp, I just won’t go to training camp. I don’t do that selfish stuff.
“I went to UCLA, got a doctor, and he said, ‘You know what, the doctor you’re talking to is crazy. We’re not going to take your bone off. We’re just going to shave the bone.’ I told Mitch, I said, ‘I’m going to sit out 10 or 12 games.’ He said, ‘We love you. Take your time, man. Don’t even worry about it.’ So I sat out and they go 2-12. Now they’re looking at me questionably. So then I had to come back. I came back empty. I admit it. But they told me not to do anything. So then when they go 2-12 it’s my fault.”
The Lakers’ 2002-03 season ended in the second round of the playoffs. Whispers soon followed that O’Neal was overweight (360 pounds) and deteriorating.
The Lakers seemed poised for another NBA title this past season but were shocked by the Pistons. And finally, the team’s dismantling began with the exit of coach Phil Jackson.
“People ask me now, why are you down to 335? Because that’s what Pat wanted me to be. You don’t want me lifting, I won’t lift. I’ll do more of that cardio. I’m going to try to get back down to 325, 320 by the first game.
“When I was in L.A., they wanted me to keep lifting big. I was diesel. I was in there at the gym benching 400, curling. Muscle weighs more than fat. I’ve never had more than 15 percent body fat. They try to put the weight thing on me, but either I’m the baddest player to ever play the game or I’m the baddest out-of-shape player to play the game. How can I be out of shape and averaging better than Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, the guys you’re giving the MVPs to? It doesn’t make sense. That’s the stuff the Lakers threw out there so when it comes time to do what they have to do, they say, ‘You went from averaging 27 to 21. You’re getting old. We don’t want to pay you this, we’re going to pay you this.’ But I’m smart.
“I told my wife the other day, I’m the Halle Berry of the NBA. Everybody wants this, baby. Everybody wants me. You’re firing Phil without telling me. You’re doing this and doing that. I’ll tell you what, you can have this. I’ve been the scapegoat for too long.”
