Same Story - Different Year

[GSH]

Shaq's whining is the same old warmed-over poop sandwich he's served up every year since he came to the league. I pulled a few references. There were a lot more, but they're all basically the same thing. Shaq whines because people play him hard on defense, and whines because they won't let him sumo wrestle with them on the other end. The Suns would like everyone to believe that the Spurs have no skills but flopping. But Shaq has been saying the exact...same... ...about every playoff opponent for years. He always wants things both ways, and the sportswriters play along because it makes for good controversy.

From an article during the 2001 playoffs http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/bas...haq_lakers_ap/:

A day after accusing Dikembe Mutombo of "flopping and crying every time I back him down," Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal issued that concise message to his Philadelphia counterpart. O'Neal was ready Monday when the subject of Mutombo, the NBA's defensive player of the year this season, was broached by reporters. "Good, I don't have to repeat myself," O'Neal said when told Mutombo had taken his remarks following Game 3 of the NBA Finals as a challenge. "I said what I said, and I meant what I said. So, hey, good.

"Challenge me. Treat me like a game of checkers and play me. I'm allowed to pivot, I'm allowed to play strong, I'm allowed to be powerful. That's what I've been doing my whole career and I'm not going to change. "So, you know, just play me. Treat me like Sega and play me."

With the Lakers leading 86-84 Sunday night, O'Neal was called for an offensive foul on Mutombo, his sixth, to put him on the bench with 2:21 remaining... O'Neal also committed an offensive foul against Mutombo in the third quarter, his fourth, just 15 seconds after he was called for a loose ball foul against the Philadelphia center.

Mutombo seemed hurt by O'Neal's comments immediately after Game 3, calling O'Neal a good friend and saying he didn't know how to respond. A day later, Mutombo took the offensive. "When he says that, it's related to what? Him fouling out? Am I the referee?" Mutombo said. "These are the Finals; these are the NBA championships. Nobody let me drive on the freeway to get to where I am today. It doesn't make sense at all for an intelligent person to say that."... "How am I going to flop if I have s ches in my mouth? That sounds so stupid. I hope he didn't mean that. I don't give a damn whatever the guy is saying about me... Sometimes you lose your friends in the middle of a battle. We don't play for the same organization. Right now, we just want to win a ring."

From an article during the 2002 playoffs http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-95765217.html

Being a big guy in a skinny guy's game creates problems, most obviously for the opposing team. When O'Neal wants to enter the lane, he simply can bull through his defender, who can do little except absorb the blow and try to keep his feet. Sitting in front of his locker after a battle with O'Neal last week, Kings center Vlade Divac pointed to a red welt on his shoulder. "That one was from his head, I think," Divac says. He pointed to another, close to his chest. "His elbow, here. I know he can't feel it, but I can."

But though his bull elephant size is O'Neal's blessing, it is also his curse, and that became more evident as the tightly contested Western Conference finals wore on. Divac did what he could, including committing hard fouls on O'Neal when necessary and hitting the deck with a flourish to extract whistles from referees. It worked, as the Kings got the O'Neal into foul trouble in games 2 and 3 and won both. O'Neal, frustrated, said of Divac's combination of physical play and acting, "If the outcome is going to be predicted WWF-style, let me know so I'm not out there busting my butt for nothing."

The extremes the Kings have gone to in defending O'Neal are a consequence of his extreme size. In a way, those extremes are an acknowledgment of O'Neal's dominance, a team admitting that since O'Neal bends the rules of metabolism and body types, the rules of professional basketball must be bent in response. Nearly every time O'Neal touches the ball, a referee could find a foul to call on the defender. The same referee probably could find an offensive foul to call on O'Neal, as well. The key for opponents is to make the second option happen five or six times in a game, giving O'Neal something to worry about. When refs' decisions are made, O'Neal usually is not the sympathetic figure. As Chamberlain used to say, nobody roots for Goliath.

That's not to say the Kings had no hand in slowing O'Neal ...Divac and Pollard anticipated O'Neal's moves to his favored spots and got there before him, exaggerating contact in hopes of getting favorable whistles. When they did not, the Kings needled the referees.

In one exchange in the second quarter of Game 3, O'Neal backed into Pollard, sending Pollard a foot backward, as if he had taken a cannonball in the gut. O'Neal pushed into Pollard again before getting off a shot. During a timeout a few minutes later, Kings coach Rick Adelman assailed referee Steve Javie about the lack of a whistle. Javie admitted to Adelman that the call should have been made. On the Lakers' next trip down the floor, O'Neal was whistled--on the first bump--when he began backing in on Divac. "I would not want to be a referee," Divac says. "They call it different for him than for me, because they have to. He's so big. We just have to make sure they know what is going on, on both sides."

Rather than be intimidated by O'Neal's outlandish size, the Kings have used it against him. The conventional game plan for O'Neal calls for making him work on defense, setting him up in pick-and-rolls and making him run the floor. Sacramento worried less about those things than simply trying to draw fouls and throw O'Neal off his game mentally. O'Neal blasted the Kings' ref-baiting flops as unmanly, saying of Divac, "It would be a shame if he were the first center who got (a tide) by doing it that way. I wouldn't do that." Manly or not, the immediate result was a Shaq who was less certain of himself and more willing to settle for a hook shot over a drive to the rim.

From an article during the 2002 playoffs http://www.usatoday.com/sports/nba/0...bonus-shaq.htm:

"I never get tired. I get beat up," O'Neal says of the mul ude of strategies against him. One of the best at guarding O'Neal is 6-7, 255 pound Spurs reserve Malik Rose, who bodies up well and is just basically annoying. "You can't be afraid of him, that's the first rule," Rose says.

Even teammate Kobe Bryant has noticed that O'Neal has had to adjust his game this season because he is getting called for more offensive fouls as more defenders play the flop defense. "I think he was kind of tentative to back players down, because every time he does they call an offensive foul," Bryant says. "As a consequence, he has to shoot turnaround jump shots or shoot a hook shot going into the lane."

Said Indiana center Brad Miller, "He can still put his forearm in your chest. He can still put his elbow in your chest. He still has those moves." Miller, while with Chicago in January, sparked a melee, and some wild punches from O'Neal, with hard fouls. The incident led to a three-game suspension for O'Neal.

From an article during the 2006 playoffs http://hoopshype.com/columns/flop_hans.htm:

Miami coach Pat Riley, upset over the increasing number of offensive fouls called against his center, Shaquille O’Neal, lashed out at foreigners for bringing the flop to the NBA. “In this league,” he said, “it's become an art form, brought, by the way, by the Europeans.” (Sound familiar?)[[/I]...Alas, not only does Riley sound like the stereotypical “ugly American” with that comment, he’s dead wrong. The flop is as American as Kentucky bluegrass. Maybe Vlade Divac brought a European flair to the stunt when he joined the Lakers – Pat Riley’s Lakers – in 1989, but U.S.-born hoopsters had already been taking dives for decades.[/I]

[GSH]

Bonus Coverage.

The first article sounds a lot like the problem the Suns face with Duncan. Subs ute Tim's name for Hakeem's.

In the second article, Shaq was already whining in 1995. Bill Russell tries to explain to Shaq that he gets some of those whistles because of his (lack of) technique.

From an article during the 1995 playoffs http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-17029094.html.

Simply put how would you defend Olajuwon(Duncan)?... Do you let Shaq do much of the work, giving him occasional help? Or do you constantly run an extra player at Olajuwon(Duncan), trying to force him to pass instead of shoot? Or do you just pick your spots with O'Neal fearing that do if he defends Olajuwon(Duncan) too much he will end up in foul trouble? (Sound Familiar?)

O'Neal doesn't have the skills to cope with Olajuwon's moves and shots... But what do you make of the warning from Spurs guard Vinny Del Negro: "No one is going to stop Hakeem. He's in a zone, and when he's playing like that no one is going to beat them." "That's why Houston is the champion," says Spurs guard Doc Rivers, who was with the Knicks last season when they lost in the Finals to the Rockets. "They have the balance that throws off your defense and gets you guessing. You can't let Hakeem run wild, no question about that. But everyone is finding out that other guys on that team can kill you, too."

...Olajuwon says simply, "I am at the top of my game." And my what a game that is. He seems inexhaustible. The Rockets didn't have a day off for a month, were the underdogs in every series, battled back twice from deep deficits and never had the home-court advantage, yet they knocked off a league-record three 50-plus win teams, including the club with the league's best record, the Spurs. If they wanted to tire, Olajuwon wouldn't let them. He's so consistent and so determined; no one should be able to play this well with seemingly so little effort... Tomjanovich searches for the right adjective to describe his center. "Energy, leadership," he says. "But then there is his heart and his intelligence on the floor every night. And the little things he does out there that no one remembers. "His game is flawless. He's a great player at the top of his game."


From a 1999 interview between Shaq and Bill Russell http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...23/ai_54031733:

Shaq: Now, (referees) sometime call the games so funny. Sometimes I let a lot go on defense. Now I'm going to try (stepping up on the defensive end) because I like blocking shots. But I'm so big and strong that when I touch ... these NBA actors, they flop to the floor. They say, "Shaq is big and strong; he knocked the guy down." So I sometimes have to back off a little bit (on the defensive end).

Russell: The reason you are having problems defensively is because you are starting too late. What I mean by that is, you have to be in a flex position. Because if you are standing there, and you got to move, first thing you have to do is flex. That's a step. If you are already flexed, then the next step is movement. When I played center, I could look over the guard's head. I knew I was out of position, in other words, I flexed on down with him and I could see through the traffic. Then, open up on defense. Do you know what that means?

O'Neal: Keep your hands up?

Russell: No. Keep your hands down. Always keep your hands down. "Open up" means no matter where the ball is, be able to face it, but keep your man in sight, in other words, use your split vision. If I'm guarding you, the ball is over there, I should be in the position where I can see you and the ball. Now I'm opening up. And I can react quicker to the offense.

TSN: Do you think the referees are doing a good job trying to stop the Hack-a-Shaq?

O'Neal: I think they are, but I don't think they call it every time I get fouled. Everybody knows I get fouled on every play. Another thing I have a problem with is guys coming in and (tackling) me and they don't call it. So when I play defense, they call a foul. That's the only thing I have a problem with. I don't have a problem being hit because I like being hit. Overall, I think (the referees) are about 89.2 percent good.

[Budkin]

Shaq's just so used to being able to push other people around that he can't take it when it doesn't go his way.

[statman32]

Funny le considering he won the championship in all the years you used as a example.

While Shaq has gotten away with a lot of crap throughout his career he has also gotten hammered hundreds of times with no call because of how big he is. Its a joke how hard some of these guys foul him. Not pulling the "poor Shaq" card because he has also thrown his fair share of elbows but just stating it goes both ways.

[Supreme_Being]

Shaq should quit acting like a ing baby.

[WildcardManu]

Funny le considering he won the championship in all the years you used as a example.

While Shaq has gotten away with a lot of crap throughout his career he has also gotten hammered hundreds of times with no call because of how big he is. Its a joke how hard some of these guys foul him. Not pulling the "poor Shaq" card because he has also thrown his fair share of elbows but just stating it goes both ways.

Funny thing is, 10 years from now no one will remember the whining by the loser teams in between games, just the champ.

[slayermin]

Tim Duncan plays on the post as much as the Big Mac attack and you never hear him and moan like that. It's a testament to the greatness of Tim Duncan, imo.

[Str8Ballin]

You all are shaking in yo boots and you know it! the Big Diesel is in town and he is not in a good mood. And you know what happens when SHaq gets angry...he wins rings.

[slayermin]

You all are shaking in yo boots and you know it! the Big Diesel is in town and he is not in a good mood. And you know what happens when SHaq gets angry...he wins rings.

You must be thinking of your Suns' past history against Shaq. We don't shake in our boots. We compete.

[phyzik]

You all are shaking in yo boots and you know it! the Big Diesel is in town and he is not in a good mood. And you know what happens when SHaq gets angry...he eats wings.

Fixed for accuracy.

Everybody hide your chicken wings, Snaq is Angry.