Shaq Uncut: My Story

by Shaquille O’Neal

  I know everybody wants to know what really happened in those 2010 playoffs. There’s been all sorts of crazy stories about what went on in our Cleveland locker room during that time. There were a lot of rumors after LeBron left Cleveland that he and Delonte had some personal beef. Trust me, I lived thirty minutes outside of Cleveland in Richfield, Ohio, so if something went down, I missed it—and I didn’t miss much.

  There’s no question in Game 5 LeBron was kind of out of it. He didn’t even score a basket until late in the third quarter and was something like 1 for 11 from the perimeter. But that’s not as unusual as people think. I’ve seen plenty of superstars have a bad shooting game and get into a funk. I can remember that happening to Dominique and even Larry Bird. Shooters get rattled sometimes when they don’t shoot well. Scorers get frustrated when they don’t score.

  Now some of my teammates told me later they were trying to talk to LeBron on the bench and he wasn’t responding. He was, said one of the guys, almost catatonic.

  I never approached LeBron that night. We were in first place all year. The kid was in total control and, to be honest, he didn’t really seem to need anything from me, so I took his lead and stayed in the background. It was his team. It didn’t feel right to me after all season of leaving him alone to start getting in his face in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

  Only LeBron knows what was bugging him. Maybe it was personal problems, maybe it was his sore elbow, maybe it was all that pressure and expectations. Hard to say. He kind of checked out for part of the 2011 NBA Finals against Dallas, too.

  I always believed he could turn it on at any moment, but for some reason he didn’t. Not against the Celtics in 2010 and not against the Mavericks in 2011.

  It was weird. It’s one thing to be a passer, but you are supposed to be the One. I’m watching him play against Dallas, and they’re swinging the ball and they get him a perfect open look—and he’s kicking it to Mario Chalmers. Makes no sense. I told people, “It’s like Michael Jordan told me. Before you succeed, you must first fail.”

  Those Heat guys put a ton of pressure on themselves. They got up there with their little coronation and their little concert and they’re saying, “Not one, not two, not three, not four” rings.

  I’ve done stuff like that a few times in my career. When I went to Miami and that huge crowd was there to greet me I wanted to connect with them, so I gave them my word we’d win a championship. My word is my bond, so that was going to motivate me. In LA, after we’d already won a title, I stood up there at the parade and said, “Can you dig it?” and told them I’d see them again next year.

  I like the pressure. I feed off it. But if you are going to put pressure on yourself like that, you can’t have a bad game when it’s on the line. That’s what really puzzles me about LeBron. I’ve never seen a guy with that kind of ability come up that short. He looked completely out of sync to me against the Mavericks.

  Still, I wouldn’t bet against him.

  When I left Cleveland in 2010 I wished LeBron luck in free agency, but I had no idea where he’d land. I never heard from him again once I left town.

  I wished I had more of a chance to help the Cavaliers win. I feel like I could have made a difference, but not everyone in Cleveland was on board with that theory. I kept my mouth shut and packed my things and went home.

  I even seriously thought about retiring.

  In June 2010, the Lakers beat the Celtics for the championship, and they asked Kobe Bryant what it meant to him. “Just one more than Shaq,” he said. “And you can take that to the bank.”

  Hey, I couldn’t blame the guy. He was holding the trophy, so he had bragging rights. I sent Kobe my congratulations via Twitter and said, “Enjoy it, man. Enjoy it. I know what u r saying, ‘Shaq how my ass taste.’ ”

  I didn’t know it at the time, but the owner of the Celtics, Wyc Grousbeck, listened to Kobe say he had one more ring than me and told Danny Ainge, “Let’s get Shaq.”

  Hmmm. The Big Shamrock. Guess those retirement plans were on hold again.

  DECEMBER 2010

  Boston Garden

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Shaquille O’Neal fidgeted while Doc Rivers reviewed the game plan on the chalkboard. The big man was trying to concentrate, but he was having difficulty getting his oversized frame loose. His hips had been locking up, and the training staff instructed him to keep moving, keep stretching, keep engaging his muscles before each game.

  Shaq glanced around the locker room for some free weights to warm up his biceps. There were none. He looked around once more and spotted Mike Longabardi, the diminutive Celtics assistant coach.

  “Hey Mike,” he whispered. “C’mon here.”

  “Huh?” said Longabardi.

  “Let me pick you up. Right here in my arms, brother,” said O’Neal.

  Without another word, Shaq scooped up the startled assistant, then refocused his attention on Rivers as he lifted then lowered Longabardi in a fluid, curling motion.

  Kevin Garnett, who had come to represent the very essence of Celtics intensity, lowered his head to stifle a giggle.

  “I was doing my best not to bust out laughing,” said KG, “but it’s not every day you see a guy bench-pressing your assistant coach.”

  Rivers valiantly tried to press on, but as Shaq sat expressionless, using a grown man as a free weight, his teammates collapsed in convulsions of laughter.

  “Aw, Shaq,” protested Rivers, before grinning in spite of himself. “Okay, guys, let’s play.”

  “Don’t worry, Coach,” the big man said, patting Rivers’s shoulder on his way to the parquet. “I’m nice and loose now.”

  So were his teammates.

  PLAYING FOR THE BOSTON CELTICS WAS ONE OF THE GREAT honors of my career. I only wish I could have finished what I went there to do—help them win a championship.

  I don’t care what anyone says. If I could have stayed healthy, I really believe we could have done it.

  In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work out with Boston. We were talking to a bunch of teams, including Atlanta, and I wanted to get the midlevel exception. The Celtics chose to give that to Jermaine O’Neal. That kind of bothered me. Danny said they gave it to Jermaine because he was thirty-one years old, a lot younger than me, and he was coming off a great year—except for the playoffs. Danny said JO had an injury in the postseason and that was why he’d played bad. He said Kendrick Perkins told him to go out and get Jermaine O’Neal.

  When Perk suggested it, Danny said, “But he played so bad against us in the playoffs.”

  “Don’t hold that against him,” Perk answered. “Everybody plays bad against me.”

  What it came down to was, if I wanted to play for the Boston Celtics, I was going to have to take the minimum, which was about $1.5 million.

  I was going to be thirty-nine years old, and it was obvious to me I needed to go somewhere that wouldn’t ask me to do too much by myself. I had already done it my way, I already had four rings, so where could I go to further my legacy?

  I looked at all the contending teams, and Boston stood out for a number of reasons. For one thing, Perk was out after knee surgery, so they needed help in the middle. The other thing was, I already knew their Big Three very well. KG and I had been friends for years. Paul Pierce was a big-time scorer, and I was the one who gave him the nickname “The Truth.” Ray Allen’s mom and my mom have been real tight for a long time, so I knew what I was dealing with in terms of those guys.

  What attracted me most to Boston was they played like a team. They shared the ball, and you never heard about any personality conflicts on the team. My one year in Cleveland when they beat us in the playoffs, Rajon Rondo killed us in Game 1, then Paul Pierce killed us in Game 2, and then in Game 3 they decided to put me on KG, and then he killed us. I’m watching them, thinking, Nobody cares who scores the points. That’s pretty cool.

  There was some talk about me going back to the Lakers. Jeanie Bus
s was pushing her dad to consider it, and Phil Jackson would have signed off on it, but Dr. Buss wasn’t gonna go for that.

  Danny Ainge called me just after midnight on July 1. He told me he wanted to sign me for the minimum. Perry, my agent, said we’d take the midlevel exception, but Danny was worried about my age and how much I had left in the tank. He said with Perk out he needed to make sure he had someone that could go every night. We decided to hold off until we looked into some other options. In the meantime, the Celtics and the Cavaliers talked about some sign-and-trade deals, including one that involved Anthony Parker, but they couldn’t agree on the Boston player.

  The summer went along after the Celtics signed JO, and I thought, Well, maybe not Boston. But I never really got them out of my mind. Paul Pierce was talking to me saying, “Come, big fella. We need you.” Ray was really pushing for me, too. The fans in that city had always been so fantastic to me and those veterans were really appealing, so I told Perry, “Go back at them.”

  It was early August, and Danny was fishing with two of his sons on the Colorado River. There was no cell phone service on the river, but he had a satellite phone with him and that’s how Perry reached him.

  They talked about the minimum, and Danny told Perry that Doc Rivers wasn’t sure about having me come on board. He’d heard some stuff out of Cleveland that Mo Williams and I had some issues, and he wasn’t too happy about it. He was a big fan of Pat Riley’s, too, so I’m guessing he got an earful from Pat about me.

  I called Doc on his cell phone. He had just landed in Orlando, where he lived during the off-season. My house was about twenty minutes from his place. I asked him, “Can we talk?”

  He agreed, so I went to his house and we sat down. He had this list of things he wanted to go over with me. The first thing he said was, “Shaq, for the first time in your life you are going to have to be a role player. I’m not sure you can deal with that.” He told me he wouldn’t guarantee me any playing time. It could be twenty minutes some nights, fifteen minutes other nights. He wouldn’t guarantee me a starting job.

  “And no perks,” Doc told me. “No bodyguards, no entourage. If you want those people, you will have to pay for them yourself. No superstar treatment here. That’s not how we do it.”

  I’m listening, and so far I can live with all of it. I told him, “Doc, I just want to win one more title. That’s all I care about. I want to help the Celtics get another ring.”

  He said, “C’mon, Shaq,” and I looked him dead in the eye and said, “I’m serious. You won’t have any trouble with me. I’m here to win.”

  I told him, “Look, the breakups I had in LA and Miami, was I a bit of an ass? Yes, because they were putting all sorts of pressure on me, so it had to be done my way. My philosophy in those situations was if you don’t like me, move me. But with this team, I don’t have to be like that. I see how you guys play, how you move the ball. It would be idiotic of me to come in here and mess it up. I want to get five rings. I’m on my way out either way. Whether I get one million, two million, ten million, it’s still coming down to the finish for me.”

  I could see he was coming around to it. I had been working out all summer and I looked pretty good, and he made a comment about that.

  Then he said to me, “I will cut you on the spot if I think you are messing up my locker room.”

  “It won’t happen,” I told him. “I promise.”

  Next thing you know, I’m signing with the Celtics, and KG is calling me and he’s all juiced up, and I pick out number 36, and I’m ready to take over Paul Revere’s city by land and by sea.

  Doc told me, “Jermaine O’Neal will probably start while Perk is out, and you’ll come off the bench.”

  I said, “That’s cool.”

  Now on the inside I’m thinking, We’ll see about that, because I’m competitive and I knew I was going to come into Boston in great shape and they would realize pretty quickly they would want me in that starting lineup over JO. But I promised Doc I wouldn’t make any waves, so I kept all those thoughts to myself.

  When I showed up at training camp, I could tell they were impressed. The training staff looked me over and gave me two thumbs-up. The coaching staff went over some stuff with me and I picked it up pretty quickly, so now they are thinking, Shaq’s a fast learner. Right away the guys understood having me on the floor would open up all sorts of things for them offensively, so they were happy, too. JO had some problems with his knee, so I ended up in the starting lineup after all.

  That was a good decision. Turns out when I started and played twenty minutes or more, our team was 21-4. Not bad for a thirty-nine-year-old guy making the minimum.

  The Celtics were a crazy bunch. I fit right in. They were loose, a little nutty. I’ve always said KG is one of the funniest guys in the NBA—he just doesn’t want to let the public in on that. I used to see it when we played in All-Star Games together. He does great imitations, all in that rat-a-tat voice of his. He does a very good Shaquille O’Neal, actually. He’s got my mumble down.

  One day we were hanging out and me, KG, Nate Robinson, and Glen Davis did a video in the locker room. We put on some Halloween masks, and I wore a wig with a ponytail, and we started dancing to “Hard in Da Paint” by Waka Flocka Flame. KG was wearing some kind of evil duck mask and a towel, and I’m telling y’all, that boy has rhythm. Everyone agreed it was vintage until Nate Robinson tweeted it, and Danny Ainge turned up the volume and started listening to the lyrics. They were kind of raunchy and they had a lot of words you shouldn’t say around kids, so Nate got fined.

  That might have been my fault. When we were in training camp I heard Danny talking to Nate and Glen Davis about tweeting. He was trying to tell them to be careful and to remember they were representing the Celtics, and the team had certain guidelines they were going to expect them to follow.

  I’m listening to all this and after he’s done I go up to Danny and say, “You know, everything you said is right, but you’re not speaking their language.” Danny is looking at me kind of funny and I said, “If you really want them to get the message you say this: ‘If you are irresponsible about tweeting, I’m going to fine you twenty thousand dollars.’ They’ll understand that.”

  The next day we have a “social media” session where this expert comes in and talks to us about tweeting and YouTube and all that stuff. We have a pretty interesting debate about freedom of speech. The expert starts giving us examples of athletes who have tweeted something and gotten themselves in a bunch of trouble. You can tell Nate and Big Baby aren’t even listening. The next thing you know, Danny stands up and says, “Okay, let me make this clear. It will cost you twenty thousand bucks if there is profanity, nudity, or bad language. Use the F word and it’s going to cost you.”

  I swear, it must have been four or five days later that we did the video. That was a private thing, something between the guys. We had a blast doing it, but it was never intended to leave our locker room. If it hadn’t, it would have been no harm, no foul. But once Nate tweeted it, that was on him. When Danny hit him with the fine, KG was saying, “Twenty thousand dollars! Hell! That’s the last video I’m doing.”

  That kind of stuff is one of the reasons Doc never really warmed up to Nate. I wasn’t surprised at all when he got traded.

  Nate was always trying to get noticed by the public. He was always tweeting videos of himself punking his teammates. You’ve probably seen clips of him putting salt in my water or dunking on my head when I had my back to him in practice. He and Paul started throwing popcorn in my mouth when I fell asleep in the theater. In training camp Nate put on my size 23 shoes and tried to do a wind sprint in under thirty seconds.

  Let me let you in on a little secret. Most of those “punks” were staged. I came up with most of them for Nate. Some people are a little too focused on Twitter, and Nate was one of them. He was too worried about how many followers he had. He kept saying, “Shaq, I need more people. Help me out.”

  I made sure I
didn’t go around telling any of the Celtics how to play or what to do. When you think about it, the star power we had in that room was incredible. Between KG, Paul, Ray, and myself, we had racked up almost 96,000 points, forty-four All-Star appearances, and seven championship rings.

  What I did try to do with some of the younger fellas was talk to them about marketing themselves and promoting their own brand. Just like Magic Johnson had done with me, I tried to explain to a kid like Rajon Rondo that he shouldn’t be satisfied with just endorsements. He should go beyond that. He should create his own Rondo portfolio.

  I loved the guys. Almost all of them. They were a terrific group, very professional, but they loved to laugh and sing and dance and keep it light.

  They had their moments, like any team. Rondo was always a topic of conversation. I’ve been in a lot of leadership positions. I’m getting my PhD, so I’ve been reading all sorts of leadership books. The one thing you can’t do is this—a millionaire can’t change a millionaire.

  People want to change Rondo. It ain’t happening. He’s a talented kid, but he’s a stubborn kid. I love him. He has a great future ahead of him, but he probably needs to meet his teammates halfway once in a while.

  The good thing about me is I speak everyone’s language. Always have. I can get gutter with Delonte West or I can raise it up and talk Harvard talk with Ray Allen.

  The first couple of months with Rondo, I didn’t say anything to him. I just watched him. I was trying to learn what made him tick, because the other guys had told me how important he was but how frustrating he was at the same time.

  After a while, I felt like I had a sense of how he rolled. Most guys his age think about scoring. He only thinks about passing. So I went up to him one day and I said, “Hey, man, throw me a lob, I’ll make you look good.” So he did. And I made him look good.