Of course a big salary like that was going to be big news. I was called greedy, a mercenary, a traitor.
Reporters asked me about the contract. I told everybody, “I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money, I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, and wear Reebok.”
But first I had to help the US win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. During the Olympics I had a few things going through my mind. The first was signing with the Lakers and knowing my whole life was about to change. That was the most overwhelming feeling. It kind of overshadowed the Olympics for me, in a way, because there was so much going on and it was happening so fast and it was a little distracting.
There was never any doubt our 1996 US team was going to win the gold medal. We had Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon and Karl Malone and John Stockton and Reggie Miller. We were stacked. I knew I wasn’t going to shine, but I was hoping to give the world a little peek at what I was all about.
I had some extra motivation heading into those Olympics. They called us “Dream Team II” because we were following the 1992 Dream Team, which had Mike and Magic and Larry and all those guys. I was the final cut of that team. It came down to me and Christian Laettner, and they gave it to him because he had more international experience, whatever the hell that meant.
So now here it was, four years later, and I was starting to dominate in the NBA, and it was clear they’d made a mistake in 1992. They picked the wrong guy.
Our coach for the ’96 team was Lenny Wilkens, and early on he did a pretty good job of getting us all in there. We pretty much rolled over everybody. I remember Penny and I took over in the quarterfinals against Brazil, and Charles and Reggie started dumping on Penny, saying, “Shaq used to be your boy, but not anymore. He left you!”
Anyhow, we got to the gold medal game and we were playing Yugoslavia and Vlade Divac, one of the guys they traded away to make room for me in LA.
I was pretty revved up for the game. Having a military background, I was looking forward to standing up there on the gold medal platform and hearing our national anthem being played. It was a moment I was really looking forward to. I knew my dad was going to be very proud of me.
What happened pretty much ruined it for me. Before the game Lenny Wilkens came up to me and said, “Shaq, you will go to many more Olympics, but this will be David Robinson’s last one, so I’m going to give him most of the minutes.” Lenny is a very smooth talker, and before I could say anything he just walked off.
I barely played in the gold medal game. I played about five minutes total. Wilkens put me in for the final fifteen seconds. I think I had 2 points. It was David Robinson’s third Olympics and my first. So you can’t give me some time? I was really disappointed. After we won, I took my medal and I jumped in my car and I drove home.
That was the beginning and the end of my Olympic experience.
I didn’t have time to really dwell on it, though. I had to find a house in LA. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun going back to Orlando to get my stuff. I tried to block out all the negative stuff coming out of there, but it wasn’t easy. All these people who loved me were now trashing me. Some of it was pretty vicious. It destroyed my mom, it really did—and I don’t like it when people upset Lucille.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the Orlando Magic ended up doing me a favor. Once I hopped that flight to LA and put on that Lakers uniform, my life was never the same.
DECEMBER 23, 1996
Los Angeles, California
Shaq-a-Claus shifted his Santa hat on his head, gleefully clapping his hands together as he approached the community center in Watts.
“Just like a little kid would,” recalled his uncle Mike Parris, who accompanied him on the trip.
Shaquille O’Neal was no stranger to the center. Over Thanksgiving he served dinner to nearly eight hundred low-income children who found refuge there from the drugs and crime that infested one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
And now, Shaq happily took orders for their mostly routine Christmas wants: computer games, bicycles, a talking dolly.
Yet it was the wish of one small boy that resonated with him.
“What I’d really like for Christmas is snow,” he said. “I’ve never seen it. I asked my momma about it once, and she said I never will see it because we’re going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”
During the car ride back to his Mulholland Drive mansion, Shaq was mostly quiet. That, Mike Parris knew, meant the wheels were turning.
“Uncle Mike,” he finally said. “We need to get those kids some snow.”
Parris was used to fulfilling Shaq’s unusual requests, often on the spur of the moment and almost always for children. He nearly caused a riot at a Toys R Us one Christmas when he bought every video game in the store to fill the Shaq-a-Claus quota.
But snow? In LA?
“People ski here, don’t they?” Shaq reasoned.
One month later, the rumble of three dump trucks thundering down Central Avenue sent the startled children of Watts flocking to the street. Their community center parking lot had been transformed into a winter wonderland, blanketed with mounds and mounds of snow, all imported from Bear Mountain.
Shaq had not yet arrived at the center. He was just minutes away when he passed a gas station with a line of bicycles displayed out front.
“How many bikes do we have?” Shaq asked his uncle.
“About eighty,” Parris answered.
Shaq then pulled into the gas station and purchased the owner’s entire inventory. The additional fifty bicycles were delivered within the hour.
By then Shaq was knee-deep in a snowball fight, frolicking with his tiny friends dressed in T-shirts and shorts, squealing with delight each time one of them knocked his sizable Shaq-a-Claus hat askew.
MY PARENTS TAUGHT ME TO GIVE BACK. IT WAS UNDERSTOOD that if I became rich and famous like we thought I would, then I would share the wealth. Some of my happiest moments have been doing that.
One of the best things about having money is doing something nice for people who don’t expect or want you to do anything. For example, we had this fellow who worked for the Lakers. His name was Rudy Garciduenas, and he was in charge of cleaning our practice gear. You were supposed to take your stuff and put it in the net, and he’d wash it. I’d leave my crap everywhere, but for some reason Rudy would take care of me.
One day I needed him to take a bag of stuff somewhere for me but he said, “I can’t. I don’t have room in my car.” I’m leaving and I see him driving out in this dumpy little Hyundai with a million miles on it and I said, “That’s your car?” Rudy answered, “Well, you know, Shaq, we don’t all make twenty million a year.” The next day I grabbed him after practice and we went to a truck dealership and we got out and I said, “Pick one.” He said, “Really?” The look on his face was priceless.
For the rest of my time in LA, I always made sure that Rudy had a new truck. He bought himself a vanity plate that said, THNX SHAQ. You’re welcome, Rudy.
My only complaint with some of my fellow NBA players is they don’t give back enough. Yeah, some of them have foundations, but if you ask them, it’s just a tax break for them, nothing more. Some guys are generous, but not enough of them. One time I was in the Lakers locker room and I got this letter from this handicapped woman. I shout out to the guys, “Hey, this lady needs help. She’s in a wheelchair and she needs a van. It costs sixty thousand dollars. Anybody want to chip in?” Silence. Not one guy. I bought the van for her myself.
When those things come up, my mother is the first one I think about. She’s so sweet, so big-hearted, I’d never want to embarrass her, so when I can do something I know will make her happy and proud, I do it. And, if I can, I usually talk some other athlete into doing it with me.
When I first got to Los Angeles, Jerry West was very hands-on with me. He sat me down and gave me the “I want you to focus on basketball” speech. I knew it was coming. Leonard Armato warned
me, but he didn’t have to. I understood they’d be concerned that I was spreading myself too thin because people were always telling me that. What they didn’t understand was I could do twice what normal people did. I always could. I had a ton of energy and my mind was going all the time.
Of course Jerry West commands a lot of respect, so he’s telling me, “Now there’s a lot of distractions out here in LA, so you’ve got to stay away from the limelight because people are going to target you. There’s a party every night, so you’ve got to control that. And watch out on the movies—they take more time than you think. They’ll tell you it will only take an hour but they’ll have you on your feet all day.” I’m saying, “Yes sir, yes sir,” but deep down I already knew I could handle both.
Whenever people criticized me for doing all my “extracurricular” activities, I wanted to ask them, “What, twenty-nine points and thirteen rebounds a game aren’t enough?” It’s not like I was slacking. I’d do my movie stuff and my rap stuff, but that never stopped me from getting into the gym and putting in my work on a daily basis. Leonard and I were in the gym two to three hours every day working on shooting, passing, free-throw shooting. That was the only beef, really, anyone could have—my free-throw numbers weren’t good. And believe me, that wasn’t from lack of practice. I shot so many of those things I’d have to ice my wrists afterward.
The summer before I reported to the Lakers I got really serious about my training. I worked out with Billy Blanks, the fitness guy who invented Tae Bo and got me interested in martial arts. I was in great shape.
I met Lakers owner Jerry Buss and he was certainly nice enough, but I have never made the mistake of getting too close to the owners.
Dr. Buss had his cronies reach out to me a lot in the beginning. It would be, “Hey, the boss is having a party, come down to Malibu.” I would say, “Hey, thanks, but I can’t tonight.” After a while, they stopped asking.
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I was sitting home every night. I still managed to have a lot of fun.
When I got to LA I bought myself a silver Ferrari. I couldn’t fit in a regular Ferrari so I had the guy take the engine out of the back so he could adjust the seat and create some legroom for me. That meant he had to put the motor in the front. It was a nightmare—cost me around $350,000, but I had to have it.
When you are a big guy like me, people are always telling you, “Well, you can’t have that. You won’t fit. You are too big.” Even though I was big, I just wanted all the things all the little guys in the world had. I just wanted to be like everyone else. Really. Why is that so hard?
By the time the guy fixed that Ferrari up for me, the only gas tank he could fit in the car was one—and I’m not kidding—from a lawn mower. The most gas I could put in at one time was about nine dollars’ worth. The guys on the team never let me forget it.
The next car I tore apart was a Benz. It was a burgundy 600. I put air bags on it, like hydraulics, and I put a fish tank in the back through the speakers. They were clear speakers with the tank on the top. I usually had practice at 10:00 a.m., so my bodyguard, Jerome, would put some goldfish in there and I’d drive to practice, and by the time I got there all those fishies were dead.
The problem was there was no air filter system—just water. And I think I played the music a little too loud for those poor little goldfish. They probably died of shock.
There’s no question I certainly had a car fetish, but I actually bought my first Bentley by accident. One day after practice, I’m wearing my flip-flops and my sweats and I’m all sweaty and looking a little raggedy, but I’m driving by the Rolls Royce place and I decide to stop in.
I’m looking at this beautiful Bentley and this old, stuck-up white guy, a classic car salesman, is giving me the evil eye, so I say to him, “How much is this car?” He looks me up and down and says, “Are you sure you can afford it, sonny boy?” I was so ticked off. I was really, really offended.
While I’m standing there I hear this kind of squeaky voice that sounds familiar and there he is—Mike Tyson, the boxer. He’s looking at Bentleys, too. Next thing I know Tyson has picked out two. He’s buying two of these cars, so you know what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to buy three! I grab the salesman and I say, “I want that silver hardtop one, and I want the green one, and give me that red one over there, too.”
I can’t remember exactly how much they cost, but I think they all ran me about $200,000 each. So there’s $600,000 for three cars that I can’t fit into. I had to get my guy to come in and move the seat back, so that’s a few more grand, and of course it was an absolute nightmare when we tried to trade it in after I got tired of it, which was about a year later.
My moneyman Lester Knispel was so mad at me he didn’t talk to me for two weeks. After a while, I think he realized I just had to get these things out of my system. Honestly, the cars didn’t even really mean that much to me.
It was really more about the idea of coming from zero to eighteen years old and having absolutely nothing and being a dreamer and fantasizing about having all these things—and then all of a sudden, it’s not a fantasy anymore. It’s real. I could afford almost anything I could think of. And what you realize later is, you don’t really even want most of it.
Lester had this filthy-rich client who made hair products and he wanted to meet me. Lester told him, “Okay, but it’s going to cost you.” The guy told Lester, “Whatever he wants. I just want to meet Shaq.” So Lester calls me and says, “What would you like?” I think about it and I say, “I’ve always thought those diamond Rolex watches were cool.”
The guy buys me a $150,000 Rolex watch for shaking his hand and spending fifteen minutes with him. I put on the watch and I’m looking mighty fine, and I’m quite pleased with myself.
A few months later I see Lester again and I’m not wearing the watch. He asks where it is. I tell him I gave it to my cousin. He goes nuts over that. “After all that trouble!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. I put my arm on his shoulder and tell him, “Lester, I wanted that watch because as a kid I never had anything like that. I didn’t even have shoes to wear half the time. So I wanted it. But once I got it, the thrill was over. It didn’t mean anything to me. So now my cousin has it and he’s showing it off to everybody, and someone will probably steal it from him because he’s bragging so much about it.”
The money was a tricky thing. There were a lot of negatives tied to it. People started putting their hands out, and no matter how much you helped them, they seemed to end up disappointed. They see in the papers you are making $20 million a year, so they figure, what’s a few thousand dollars here and there?
What I liked most about having all that money was being able to do things I wanted to do. One day I was shooting baskets with my brother, Jamal, and the Boys and Girls Club. The pavement was cracked and sloped and we couldn’t even have half a decent game of one-on-one. I was so disgusted I called up Lester and said, “I want to donate $1 million to the Boys and Girls Club.”
Lester said, “Okay, slow down, Shaq, what for?” I told him, “We’ve got to fix these courts. It’s ridiculous to ask kids to play ball in conditions like this.” Lester’s trying to tell me, “It won’t cost a million dollars to fix some blacktops,” but I didn’t care. I had made up my mind.
When the LA riots broke out in 1992, I called up Lester and told him, “We’ve got to buy those cops some new cars.” He said, “Shaq, they have a budget for that.”
I didn’t care. I love law enforcement, and I love cops. I was already starting to go through the Police Academy, so I figured it couldn’t hurt from a public relations standpoint. I had a deal with Ford, so I said, “Hey, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to have these cars and you can stand up on the stage with me when we give them out.” Ford paid for one, I paid for one, and the LA Police Department paid for one. It was good for me, good for Ford, and good for the LA cops. A win-win-win, I think they call that.
Now, in the ba
ck of my mind I knew I had to be smart about not going crazy with my spending. But, in those early years, in the front of my head I was thinking, “I’m making twenty million dollars a year. Screw it!” I wish I was a little wiser at a younger age, but that’s why you get old, right? So you can be wise. That means now I’m Nostradamus.
I was a great dreamer—what you’d call a fake dreamer. What I mean by that was when I was a kid I didn’t really have the confidence or the know-how to make my dreams happen. My life wasn’t really all that great sometimes. It was the same old cycle—screw up, get a beating from my father, spend the whole day in my room. But instead of being sad and depressed and upset about having just taken another brutal ass whupping and being stuck in my room on punishment again, I’d force myself to be happy. I’d watch TV and there would be a beautiful woman on the screen smiling, and I’d say, “Oh, she’s smiling at me! I’m going to marry her!” I’m picturing my wife and my beautiful house and my fabulous kids and my glamorous cars, and it made me feel better.
I never stopped dreaming. Not even after I got to LSU and things started to go well for me. I remember being in the dorm room one night and we were watching the movie Jungle Fever with Halle Berry in it, and I thought she was so stunning, so I wrote her a letter. I was just kind of kidding around, telling her I was a big fan and I’d love to meet her sometime.
The guys totally goofed on me for doing it, but I didn’t care. A few weeks later, no lie, Halle Berry wrote me back. She sent me a signed picture that I still have hanging in my office. Turns out she’s a basketball fan. She wrote, “I’m a big fan of yours, too. I can’t wait until you get to the NBA.”
I finally got to meet her in person in 1999. I told her, “You know, I wrote to you when I was in college.” She said, “I remember. I told you that you’d be in the NBA!” Halle Berry is a beautiful person—both inside and out. Sometimes I still can’t believe she knows who I am.
Shaq Uncut: My Story Page 12