I was planning for a big parade. I was feeling invincible, like Superman. The only thing that can stop Superman is Kryptonite, and there’s no such thing as Kryptonite.
What we did next was the most satisfying stretch of my entire career.
We played our old nemesis Portland and swept them in three straight. Just dominated them. Next up, the other team I couldn’t stomach, the Sacramento Kings, who I started calling the Sacramento Queens. Here are my numbers for that sweep: Game 1—44 points, 21 rebounds; Game 2—43 points, 20 rebounds; Game 3—21 points, 18 rebounds; Game 4—25 points, 10 rebounds.
See ya, Queens.
So now we’ve got to play the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals, and that means Tim Duncan again. Tim was injured in 2000, so we didn’t get a chance to see them in the playoffs. In my mind, I had to win at least one title that included getting past my most worthy opponent.
We took Game 1. In Game 2 they were up 15 in the third quarter and Duncan was terrific, and I was like, Damn, we can’t let this happen. Kobe was thinking the same thing, and he just took over the game. He went nuts. He was spectacular and the Spurs had no answer. He brought us all the way back, and after we won I said, “He’s my idol.”
And I wasn’t even kidding.
We went on to sweep the Spurs—did you hear that? We swept the Spurs!—so we still hadn’t lost a playoff game yet.
We’re going to play the Sixers in the Finals, which means a lot of Allen Iverson, who stole my second regular-season MVP trophy from me. He was a talented little bugger and we knew we’d have our hands full, and when they beat us in Game 1 we started hearing the hoots from all the Lakers haters. They said their center Dikembe Mutombo, who was the Defensive Player of the Year that season and a Georgetown guy (you know how those Georgetown guys bother me) was going to “negate me.” That’s a fancy word for “stop me.”
Don’t bet on it. It became my goal not just to beat the Sixers, but to destroy Dikembe. He was complaining about my elbows and my “aggressive play,” and I figured, How’s this for aggressive? I dunked on his head, again and again. I completely undressed him.
We needed only five games to get the job done. What I remember most about that 2001 championship is my father on the court with me, looking up at me and saying, “I love you.” The old man didn’t say that too often, and it kind of choked me up for a minute.
Jerry West called me after the series to congratulate me. He said I had “shredded” the morale of the Sixers and Mutombo. “Shaq, your quickness, your footwork, your balance, your power, it was like watching a one-sided boxing match,” Jerry said. “They should have stopped the fight. You dominated Dikembe so completely, at times I was thinking, This almost isn’t fair.”
Getting that kind of praise from one of the best ever, the logo, was really special. I was on top of the basketball world.
Before the ’01–’02 season I had some minor surgery on my toe. I had this arthritic toe that was giving me major problems. There was a more serious, more involved surgery that I probably should have had, but we were winning and I didn’t want to interrupt that with too much time missed, so I went for the quick fix that would only keep me out of training camp.
It didn’t work. My toe was killing me all season, and it made it difficult for me to push off. That year we finished second in the division behind Sacramento. Our rivalry had heated up, and of course I was fanning the flames every chance I got.
During one of our preseason games against Sacramento we’re staying at the Palms in Las Vegas and we go to hang out at this club called Rain. It has three levels; there’s about two thousand people in the club and we’re roped off up on the top floor. It’s me, BShaw, and DFish, and I start rapping about Doug Christie’s wife, who had popped off in the papers about how her husband was being treated. I mention Kings guard Mike Bibby and CWebb and Vlade in my rap, and I’m having some fun at their expense.
Of course the Kings players were all there. They were on the second level and they heard everything I said, but I didn’t care. It was all in fun. It was freestyle rap—whatever comes to you, you say it. I’m dumping all over them in this rap but they’re laughing, because what else are they going to do?
Naturally we ended up playing Sacramento in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. It was a bloodbath, a lot of smack talk going back and forth. Three of the games ended on last-second shots.
Their coach, Rick Adelman, kept complaining I was stepping over the line too soon after I shot my free throws. So, after Game 3 I sent him a little rhyme that went like this: “Don’t cry / Dry your eyes / Here comes Shaq / With those four little guys.”
In Game 4, I hit 9 of 13 free throws, and we won at the buzzer on a shot by Big Shot Bob. In Game 6, I was 13 of 17 from the free-throw line. We won, which forced a Game 7.
As I’ve said before, I happen to be a big “conspiracy theory” guy, but I can’t sign off on Sacramento’s charges that the league wanted the Lakers to win instead of them.
When we won Game 7 (11 for 15 from the line, because I know you were wondering), we got on our bus and got the hell out of there. I couldn’t resist, though. On the way out I mooned their fans.
My mother didn’t like that. If I had thought about Lucille before I did it, it would have stopped me in my tracks. Sarge wasn’t too crazy about it, either, but he has a temper so he understands sometimes your emotions get the best of you.
We played the New Jersey Nets in the Finals, and just like the previous year it was kind of a letdown after the series we had just had with Sacramento. We won the first two games, and in Game 3 the Nets were making some noise about winning a game, but I sent Jason Kidd’s driving shot into the third row of the seats and Kobe hit a spinning jumper and it was over. We went on to sweep them to lock up the three-peat.
I got myself another ring, another series MVP. Kobe came up to me and said, “Congratulations, greatest,” and I said, “Congratulations, most dominant.”
This time I didn’t guarantee a four-peat because I was still having some serious issues with my toe. The doctor told me I had hallux rigidus, which is a disorder of the joint located at the base of the big toe. It’s a form of degenerative arthritis, and mine had gotten so bad I needed more surgery. There were three options. I could have the quick-fix surgery again that hadn’t worked the first time, or another surgery that would keep me out two to three months, or a third, more involved surgery they perform on ballerinas. If I had chosen that one, I would have been out six months and I wouldn’t have been able to come back until January or February. Phil Jackson was pushing me to have the more involved surgery. He could tell my toe was so painful and so stiff that it was affecting my lift and I was putting strain on the rest of my body.
He told me, “If you get this done right, you can play until you’re forty.”
I wish I had listened to him. I was too nervous about being out six months, especially since the Lakers were stalling on the extension we had been negotiating. So I had the surgery that would keep me out three months. It helped me some, but my problems with my toe have never gone away.
It took me a while to make that decision, and to find the best surgeon, so I didn’t have the surgery until later in the summer. I missed the first twelve games of the season. When someone asked me why I put if off so long, I said, “I got hurt on company time, so I’ll heal on company time.”
Phil wasn’t happy with me after I said that. Neither was Dr. Buss. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever said, but I was injured and worried about my future, and I was getting no love from the Lakers.
We started that season 11-19. We recovered enough to win fifty games but we lost to the Spurs in the playoffs. The series was tied 2–2, and we had the ball in Big Shot Bob’s hands to win it in Game 5, only this time, the ball went halfway down… and out. We were all shocked. Rob’s shots always went in.
Our locker room was pretty quiet after we were eliminated. We had won three championships in a row, and all of a sud
den we were yesterday’s news. I remember Kobe and I sharing a black bro hug and then going our separate ways for the summer.
Even with all the back-and-forth crap between us, we understood we needed each other to win. Go back and look at any criticism I ever had of Kobe. Never once did I ever say the kid couldn’t play. It was never about that.
The crazy thing about Kobe and me was, we never had a problem in practice. Once we got on that court, whatever issues we had disappeared.
I just never looked at it as a big deal, although I know everyone else did. I heard Doc Rivers say once our relationship was the “biggest travesty in sports” because we should have stayed together and won at least five championships. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know.
The media was constantly asking me about Kobe and they were constantly asking Kobe about me. They kept poking us, prodding us, but in the end, what were the results? Rings. Championships. Legendary status.
At one point they asked me: are you and Kobe the most powerful duo that’s ever played? I put on my blank face and said, “I can’t answer that question. I didn’t have a TV growing up and I don’t know how to read.”
Kobe and I went at it a different way. He was driven, obsessed with being great. I wanted to be great, too, but I had other things in my life. I didn’t have that tunnel vision that made Kobe so special and so annoying at the same time.
The other thing Kobe didn’t understand was I wasn’t born with his body or his metabolism. If the two of us spent a month in the weight room and did the exact same program, he’d be ripped, defined. Not me, no matter how much I lift. I don’t ever look that way.
Some guys are what I call natural salad eaters. Kobe, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, they’re salad eaters. Their bodies are fabulous, chiseled. I don’t know what they eat but they look like he-man dawgs. It’s a genetic gift.
Then you look at guys like me, Zach Randolph, Kevin Love. We don’t have those bodies, but we’re still going to do magical things. Dwight Howard and Blake Griffin? They’re salad eaters.
Me, I’m going to McDonald’s, buy a Big Mac, and then I’m going to bust your ass. I don’t look like the others, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get the job done.
I’d say three championships in a row proves my point.
2002
Los Angeles, California
Shaquille O’Neal was in training, but not for a fourth NBA championship. For years he had been enrolled in the Los Angeles Police Academy, a challenging physical and academic regimen he took on in addition to playing professional basketball.
His goal was to be a member of the SWAT team. The specific requirements for the specialized unit included the ability to scale a rope one hundred feet in the air. O’Neal had completed the conditioning tests, the sit-ups and the push-ups, had endured the verbal assaults and disciplinary penalties, but that rope climb kept crossing him up.
“I was too big,” he said. “I’d grab onto that thing and haul myself up, but I wasn’t able to hang on.”
Without completing the task, a spot on the SWAT team was out of the question.
Dozens of times, he tried to shimmy up that rope at the Academy. Each time, he failed. Finally the supervising officer told him, “Shaquille, I don’t think this is for you.”
A few weeks later, Mike Parris went to visit O’Neal at his Los Angeles home. He couldn’t help but notice the one-hundred-foot rope dangling from the roof.
“Police training,” said Shaq, when asked for an explanation.
For weeks the big man tested his will against the rope. One morning, Shaq decided to add some small knots so his grip was more stable. Within days, Shaquille O’Neal had scaled it to the top.
He skipped into the house and called Philip Harrison.
“Dad,” he said excitedly. “I did it!”
The following morning Shaq removed the knots and attempted to elevate himself without them. He made significant progress and was almost three quarters of the way up when he lost his grip and toppled seventy-five feet to the ground. He landed with a sickening thud squarely on his back.
For a moment, he thought he’d fractured his pelvis. He crawled into the house, calling for help. His injuries proved to be minor, but he was so bruised and sore he missed a couple of practices and a game with the Lakers.
“I could climb that rope with the knots all day, every day,” said O’Neal. “But without them . . . it was just too hard.”
The rope was taken down. The SWAT team dream was crossed off the list. The NBA superstar continued on with his chosen profession of dunking basketballs, but the disappointment lingered.
For the first time in his life, Shaquille O’Neal discovered there were some things a big man simply cannot do.
MY FATHER’S VOICE FOLLOWS ME. SOMETIMES, I REALLY don’t want to hear it, but I know I should listen. One of the things Sarge always told me was, “What if you break your knee? What if you can’t play anymore? You better have a backup plan.”
One of my aspirations when I was done playing was to be a sheriff somewhere. Sometimes when you are a big-name star and you cross over to another entity, people think that whatever you want is just going to be handed to you.
So, in order to be a sheriff, I had to learn what the police force already knew. Rather than just being Shaq, basketball hero, the star of a couple of terrible movies and best-selling rap artist, I needed to gain some credibility in law enforcement.
I enrolled in the Police Academy in Los Angeles, and it took me three years to get through. In LA the definition of a reserve police officer is you have another job. Level 4 gives you security guard status. Level 3 gives you minor police status, which means you can ride around with the police but you can’t carry a gun. Level 2 means now you are a real police officer but you always have to be accompanied by a cop. Level 1 means you are a full-time police officer on the force.
I was reaching for Level 1, but it took me a while. After practice I’d put on my uniform and go straight to the Academy. I did that because I wanted the respect of the troops. People used to offer me badges all the time. “Hey, come to our precinct, be chief for the day.” That was not what I was after.
I wanted those other officers to respect me, not to look at me as just Shaq the basketball player. So that meant I had to go to the Academy and get tased and maced like everyone else.
I went to Sheriff Lee Baca in LA County and asked him if he’d sign off on my training. He was kind of skeptical at first because he had given gun permits to a couple of other celebrities who had been irresponsible. He didn’t tell me their names, but it took me almost four years to get a permit because of Baca’s concerns of celebrities carrying guns. He wouldn’t let me enroll in his Academy, so I went around asking some of the smaller outfits if they would take me.
I found this little department, the Los Angeles Port Police. I used to wind up at Jerry’s Deli at around 2:00 a.m. after almost every game. Every night I was there I saw this black guy with a bulge in his jacket. He’d look at me and I’d look at him and finally one night I went up to him nicely and said, “Are you a gangster or a cop?” He was a cop and his name was Duane Davis. I asked him if he could hook me up at the Academy. So now I had a sponsor, and I went to the LA Port Police Academy, and Sheriff Baca found out and tried to shut it down.
My sense was that Sheriff Baca just wanted me to be a trophy piece. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested in some DARE campaign. I wanted to be a real cop.
I’d have my uniform hanging in my locker, and after practice I’d wait for everyone to leave before I put it on, but Kobe was always there, watching me. He said to me, “Why do you want to be a policeman?” and I said, “I don’t. I want to be a sheriff.”
Because I had grown up in a military home, some of the stuff they required was second nature to me. My boots had to be clean, my lines had to be straight, there were a lot of salutes and “Yes sirs” and “No sirs.” No problem. That was my childhood.
If I screwed up or got yelle
d at I had to write these essays. One time my belt line was off, so the sergeant made me write something about appearance. I had to write a little paper about strength and honor and representing yourself in the proper manner.
The cops went out of their way to treat me like shit with their abuse and their orders and shouting in my ear, but since I grew up like that, it was nothing for me.
When they got all tough with me and yelled, “Drop and give me twenty push-ups!” inside I was laughing because I was thinking, “My father would have made me do a hundred.”
I had to go through basic training, but it was a special program because I was in the middle of basketball season. I didn’t have to go to the Academy on game days or when I was on the road. Let’s say I was in town Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The Lakers would practice from ten to noon. I’d eat lunch at the practice facility, then go to the Academy from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. There was a lot to learn. I needed to be an expert on the law, arrest tactics, civil rights.
It was a lot of work, but I absolutely loved it. Anyone who has been through the Academy understands the commitment.
Once they realized I was serious about what I was doing and once I met the necessary requirements, they let me go along on some raids and some busts.
I had a patrol where I was pulling over about a hundred people for speeding. I was handing out tickets, and they decided it was too dangerous for me to be in uniform in public and getting out of my vehicle, so they moved me to a specialized unit. It was a stolen car unit.
We’d go into the office and they’d give us a piece of paper with a list of all the cars that had been stolen and we’d patrol the area looking for them. There were about fifteen of us, and we called ourselves the Cargo Cats because we also went out looking for stolen cargo.
So one night we get a call about a car that was on our list, but we had to notify the homicide detectives because there were two dead bodies in the car. I’m riding with Duane and he asks me if I’ve ever seen a dead body. I told him, “Of course. I’m from New Jersey.”
Shaq Uncut: My Story Page 16