LAKERS SHAQ-KLED - Part III

Shaquille O'Neal is a great talent, poor foul shooter who lacks emotional disipline and has a tendency to whine about being fouled. If he had a high free throw percentage it's doubtful that he would be fouled so much.

James Loving/National Radio Text Service

Saturday November 30, 2002

SOMETHING'S BURNING:

Shortly after the NBA season began cries went out from Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson that NBA opponents were abusing his star, Shaquille O'Neal. Since that time the behemoth 7-1 315-pound center has continued with his own tough man competition in the games that followed his suspension from assaulting CHARLES BARKLEY November 10th.

O'Neal continues to display his power around the rim with his thunderous dunks and forceful rebounds. He DOMINATES EVERYONE. The 8th year NBA pro is greatest physical force in the game. There is no center playing today that can match up with O'Neal in quickness, strength and agility.

You can classify Shaq as the Monster Mash or the Bull in the china closet. With his unique physical size, strength and skill he can pretty much do what he wants….TO OPPONENTS.

Is there a way to stop him? After a recent loss to the Lakers NBA.Com reported Detroit Pistons star GRANT HILL said that he doesn't know a way to contain the big fella.

"If there is, please let me know, let the league know," he said. "He's big and he can move making it doubly tough. I think he's having the best year of his career."

Pistons coach ALVIN GENTRY knows all to well the problems that O'Neal creates.

"You have to spend so much time and energy trying to figure out what you can do with Shaq," he noted. "He breaks your heart. We played good defense and we try to block him out and he jumps up there and gets it [the ball] back. There's nothing anyone can do about it, not just our guys."

The Phoenix Suns suffered a 91-81 loss at the hands of the Lakers November 15th in which O'Neal tallied 34 points and 18 rebounds.

After the defeat NBA.Com reported that then Suns coach Danny Ainge, who retired Monday, said O"Neal dishes out more punishment than he gets. He said of Jackson speaking out about his star player being abused, "The last thing he [O'Neal] needs is protection."

In game with the Toronto Raptors O'Neal demolished Raptor VINCE CATER with a devastating blow. After the losing contest O'Neal explained to the LA Times that he is not a hit man.

"Wasn't a hit brother," O'Neal said of the pulverizing blow to Carters body. "You run into a BIG WALL that's what happens."

Excuse me!!! Is O'Neal admitting here that he is of expansive dimensions? BIG WALL!!! How can you abuse a wall? O'Neal is so big that it should be mandatory that he wear license plates.

Is the self proclaimed MAN OF STEEL selling WOLF TICKETS as in BOW-WOW WOOF-WOLF? Is the strategy to deflect his brutish physical game tactics and to imply that others are doing to him what he is doing to them? Are we talking BRUTALIZING here? What would Little Red Riding Hood say of this?

At present O'Neal is getting away with dishing out his own physical punishment and the wolf hasn't bitten him… as yet. Since his cries of abuse were heard he has become a BEAST ON A FEAST going on a statistical tear and leaving carnage everywhere he plods. O'Neal is a human minesweeper. When he comes through everyone explodes.

In the 15 games that he has played since the Barkley assault the Lakers have gone on a 12-3 tear. O'Neal's numbers have increased considerably averaging 30.1 and 15 rebounds a game through that period. He's currently contented and at peace so why the occasional rage and fury?

When O'Neal became a Laker it was virtually carved in stone that the golden boys would be the supreme beings of the NBA. It didn't turn out that way. They have been a major disappointment. The team has accomplished being the NBA's chosen people reaping the rewards of super-hype publicity…that the team and O'Neal haven't lived up to.

O'Neal showcasing his assets...

The Lakers have built their team around his talents. The mass house cleaning that took place after O'Neal's arrival said a lot about what was expected of him…you're our man. O'Neal was first surrounded with a group of young talented players who couldn't win the title.

This past summer the organization did a 180 an abandoned their youth program. They traded or simply let the youth go and signed OLD SEASONED veterans. This implies that youth is frivolous and can't do a mans job in winning a NBA title. It also says the Lakers are banking on and are shackled to O'Neal to get it done.

The Lakers have IDENTITY PROBLEMS. Fox Sports television basketball analyst and former NBA player MARQUES JOHNSON said on the November 28th broadcast: "The Lakers now complain that they don't have youth and athleticism."

Johnson was referring to RUBEN PATTERSON a Lakers rookie last season currently doing so well with the Seattle Supersonics. The Sonics signed Patterson as a free agent.

Since becoming a Laker O'Neal's has had 31 different teammates. This is ONLY O'Neal's fourth year with the club. The team has six NEW players this season.

In a previous life the Lakers executive VP and trading demon Jerry West must have worked for the Indians when they sold Manhattan.

The behind the scene pressure from Lakers management seldom surfaces until someone flees the Lakers combine. It's like the Jim Jones or religious cult syndrome.

The public usually doesn't realize how much pressure comes from within the organization. O'Neal is living with that.

The Lakers meddling management came to surface in an interview former Laker EDDIE JONES recently did for NBA.Com.

Jones was asked: Does coaching in Charlotte seem different than the Lakers?

He replied, "I think in LA, Dell (Harris - former Lakers coach) was more under the microscope and he could never do his own thing. Here, Paul (Silas) does what he wants to do. He's doing it his way whereas they wouldn't let Del do it his way."

The Lakers could go 82-0 in the regular season but when the playoffs begin… diarrhea sets in. So what is burning with the O'Neal. Why the occasional emotional outbursts?

Does the erosion and constant changing of the team put more emotional pressure on O'Neal? Can O'Neal be asked to do it all by himself?

Is it too much pressure knowing that since his arrival the Lakers have traded away EVERYBODY from the prior years Lakers team and they now have shaped a team around him? Is Jerry West putting all of his eggs in O'Neals basket?

During the regular season he's for the most part upbeat, seems happy and positive. When things go wrong at playoff time he becomes a different animal.

After a playoff loss to San Antonio he demolished a TV in a fit of anger. He didn't show up for the teams final meetings after being eliminated form the playoffs for the past two seasons.

In the past he's had problems with Kobe Bryant regarding hogging the ball and doing too much on his own. During the summer break O'Neal met with Bryant and their differences are supposed to have been mended.

Would O'Neal be more focused and less emotional if he wasn't asked to carry the extra TEAM LEADER baggage? Does the pot burn at playoff time when after a long season everything is on the line when it's time to separate the MEN from the BOYS?

O'Neal still lacks the rebounding help that he's requested management to acquire. He was disappointed when Phil Jackson cut giant seven-foot 265-pound center BENOIT BENJAMIN prior to the season. Jackson felt Benjamin wasn't quick enough for what he required in a center. Thus… O'Neal continues to take the brunt of the rebounding….pounding.

He is talking about a contract extension and receiving MORE MONEY. Teammate GLEN RICE has the same idea.

Owner JERRY BUSS has tried to justify the infamous EDDIE JONES trade as being a budgetary requirement… translation… Jones would require MO MONEY. Buss also stated that the Lakers declined to go after and sign SCOTTIE PIPPEN because the Lakers didn't want to spend the kind of money Pippen demands.

There's more going on in the world of Shaquille O'Neal than being pounded or abused by his opponents. After last season it was feared that he would leave the team because he was dissatisfied. The hiring of Jackson helped change his mind.

Are the Lakers shackled to O'Neal or is O'Neal shackled to the Lakers? Better yet is O'Neal shackled to HOLLYWEIRD? Is he investing in LA for an entertainment career? Is it entertainment first and basketball second? Are the pressures of keeping up with the Hollweird crowd and the failure to bring them a NBA championship catching up to him?

With Jackson on board the Lakers have the advantage. He's had massive ego problems with the Chicago Bulls while coaching there. He had to temper the heat that came from Jordan's comment," my supporting cast," referring to is teammates. Jackson had to soothe the psyche of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman. Jackson knows the psyche game.

With the exception of Miami Heat and former Lakers coach Pat Riley, Jackson is probably the most experienced, mentally equipped person to handle the massive ego problems the Lakers have with O'Neal, Rice and Bryant. Egos aren't a bad thing but this is a question of… can they BLEND TOGETHER as a team. If Jackson can do this he can help O'Neal stabilize his emotions.

O'Neal is a warm good-natured guy. It's not in his characteristics to be a holler guy for which he's called upon to do.

In this decade the Lakers are the HUMPTY DUMPTY of the NBA. They have been mismanaged and have HAD A GREAT FALL from grace. O'Neal has been in the middle of that fall.

O'Neal's poor foul shooting has been the Achilles heal of the Lakers in close games. Though he has been trying and trying he still can't figure out what the distance is from the foul line to the hole in the center of the basketball rim. It's getting worse…NOT better.

In his three years at LSU O'Neal shot .575 from the foul line. Prior to this season he's shooting .536 over his seven year NBA career. He's shooting .424 in the first 19 games of this season.

It is so bad that Jackson refuses to talk about his stars inability to shoot free throws because he knows O'Neal is sensitive about it. When the playoffs begin Jackson will have to pull out his entire strategic bag of tricks late in the game to keep O'Neal in the game mentally soothed and focused.

An example of the opponent's strategy to exploit O'Neal's weakness a t the foul line came about in a 93-82 loss to the Denver Nuggets. O'Neal scored a game high 36-points.

The Nuggets sent O'Neal to the foul line 12 times in the fourth quarter and he made only one and finished 2-14 in the game. Afterwards Nuggets coach Dan Issel's said that was the plan to win.

"Getting Shaq in foul trouble in the second half was a factor because he couldn't guard Antonio [McDyess]," NBA.Com reported Issell as saying. "They switched him on Ralf [LaFrentz] and that was to our advantage because he can't play pick-and-roll out on the perimeter."

Simply put O'Neal is being fouled in crunch time because he CAN'T MAKE FOUL SHOTS. He's not being abused… it's the opponents strategy.

The poor foul shooting and lack of concentration carries over in other parts of O'Neal's game. In that Nugget contest the 27 year old O'Neal had only eight rebounds in 43 minutes of play while the old man 6-9, 36-year-old teammate A.C. Green had nine rebounds in only 27 minutes of playing time.

Yes O'Neal is the biggest most powerful player in the league but that doesn't necessarily translate into overall team success.

O'Neal is not the BLUE STEEL character that he played in the same titled movie. He is destructible. Unfortunately at times it seems he's being destroyed mentally rather than physically.

I've interviewed O"Neal regarding the type of role he would like to play in a film. He wants to do a TERMINATOR movie with ARNOLD SCHWARZENAGGER.

Sounds good to me. That's a role he wants to play in fantasy. In real life he's a nice guy regardless of his emotional outbursts and wanting to be a tough guy on film.

O'Neal is spread so thin trying to keep up with his Hollyweird acting and performing thing, running a company "TWISM [This World Is Mine"] his brain could be fried. There's so much going on in his life other than basketball and free throws it's easy to understand how he could be under pressure.

The old days when a NBA player just came to work to play basketball are over. They are really over for a player of O'Neal's stature being based in Hollyweird where one has to keep up with all of the pretty people….if they choose to.

The beating and pounding that O'Neal is going through is similar the elementary school yard experience where all the kids surround the biggest kid in the class. They call him names and pick on him. The big kid doesn't' retaliate for fear of not knowing his own strength and fearing that he might hurt someone. Ohhh… BUT the schoolyard kid doesn't have to shoot free throws.

NOW LISTEN UP!!! I love the Shaq-Man. I always have since he was a freshman at LSU. True, true…I tell you true… Honest In-jun I've shared my positive feelings about the Shaq-Man with JOHN WOODEN and BILL WALTON. GOT IT ON TAPE!!!

O'Neal is a great talent, poor foul shooter who lacks emotional disipline and has a tendency to whine about being fouled. If he had a high free throw percentage it's doubtful that he would fouled so much.

A FACT OF LIFE….In many case the big guy gets picked on. O'Neal should know that from the grammar school yard days. It's the way it was ..it's the way it is…and it's the way it always will be.

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