They called me down and Howard had a whole table set up with different coffees and espressos. He was smiling and Lester was smiling, so I knew things were going well. He started serving everyone and he said, “Shaquille, what can I get you?”
I answered, “Nothing, thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”
Lester looked like I’d punched him in the gut. Howard looked kind of flustered, so I explained, “I’m sorry, I just don’t like the taste of it.”
The truth was, I’d never seen black people drink coffee. I thought it was a white person’s drink.
So we get in the car and Lester says, “You know this deal is off, right?”
It will probably go down as one of my worst business decisions ever, but what can I tell you? I just don’t like coffee. Can’t fake that one, brother.
There was one other potential business deal I’d like to have back. When I first moved to Isleworth, someone approached me about buying the orange groves across the street. All I could think of was Kareem and his bad investment in the soybean fields, so I said, “I’m going to pass.” Now I drive by there every night in the summer, past the multimillion-dollar houses they built there.
Even though I left LSU after three years of college, I promised my mother I would graduate, and I did. Honestly, furthering your education is important if you want to keep building your brand. I graduated from LSU while I was with the Lakers. I said a few words and told the good people of Baton Rouge that from now on LSU stood for Love Shaq University.
In 2005 I earned my MBA from the University of Phoenix. Now I’m working on my PhD at Barry University in Miami in Leadership and Education with a specialization in Human Resource Development. The topic of my dissertation is “The Duality of Humor and Aggression in Leadership Styles.”
What that means is my alter ego, Shaq, is now on life support. In fact, by the time you read this, he’ll probably be dead. I’m killing him off. It will be Dr. O’Neal from now on.
That doesn’t mean I won’t have some silly moments. I’m still going to do jumping jacks naked if I feel like it. I’m still going to have dessert before dinner. I’m still going to paint my toenails.
They’ve already got some things cooking in Hollywood for me. Adam Sandler called me in June 2011 and said, “I want you to be in some of my movies.”
I have a lot of opportunities. It makes me want to go back to LSU and find the marketing professor that told me “Big guys don’t sell” and ask him to revise his syllabus. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but one day I was goofing around in class and he told me, “I hope you make a lot of money playing basketball, because big guys aren’t good spokesmen.”
Oh, really?
I’ve stayed fairly low-key about what I own. For instance, out of the fifteen twenty-four-hour fitness places I own, only three have my name on it. None of the Five Guys I own have my name on it. None of the clubs I own in Vegas, either. I own Pure and Chateau and the biggest candy store in the Paris hotel in Vegas, but you won’t see Shaquille O’Neal plastered all over the Strip.
That’s just business. Now, even though I’m a businessman I’m still going to act like a kid, especially when I’m with my own kids.
I built my house in Isleworth so my children would have everything they need for the summer without having to leave their house. We’ve got the gym, the movie theater, the video games, the swimming pool with the rock wall to jump off. They’ve got their own rooms and a big kitchen.
Now they are getting older they think it’s cool to leave the house, so I let them go to the YMCA to hang out with their friends. I love that! Here we’ve got this amazing house and they’re asking to go to the Y. Makes me proud of them.
My kids have no idea what it’s like to be poor. They can’t possibly understand what it was like to walk through the streets of Newark ducking bullets and drug dealers. That’s a blessing.
But they will understand how important it is to give back to those who don’t have as much as you do. I’ll make sure of it.
One of the things I’d like to tackle is how to solve the problem we have in this country with homeless people. There are too many of them in too many cities across the United States.
Every time I see a homeless person it bothers me. Once I was in LA and I gave a guy some money, and then I saw him go into the liquor store and buy booze with the money I’d just given him. I couldn’t be angry. It was my fault, really. Another time some homeless guy asked me to help him out because he was hungry, so I give him a wad of bills. Then I’m driving around and he and some other guy are making an exchange, so clearly now I’m paying for this guy’s drugs.
At that point I decided, You know what? I don’t want homeless people to go hungry, so next time they want money I’m gonna buy them food instead.
Now when I see a homeless person and he looks down and out and smells kind of bad, I take him into a restaurant, put him in the corner away from the other customers, and tell the manager, “Here’s a hundred bucks. Let the guy eat whatever he wants—but no booze.”
The first time I did that the homeless guy was so excited. He says, “I’ll take a burger.” I tell the waitress, “Bring him three burgers and some ‘to-go’ bags of food.”
Sometimes I take the homeless guys into a grocery store and we fill a carriage. I make sure they have some of those wipes and a lot of bread and some stuff that can keep for a few days, and they walk out of there happy as hell. Of course, I drive away wondering what’s going to happen to them tomorrow. There’s got to be a better way.
People keep asking me what I want my legacy to be. I don’t know. How about this: I was generous, I was dominant, I was unique. That would work.
One thing I’ll tell you about the NBA: you are witnessing the death of the true big man. The game has changed. I can remember watching games when guys used to get down there and fight for position. Big men using their bodies, pounding each other. No more. Even power forwards are dead. There won’t be another Charles Oakley or Charles Barkley. Being a power forward now is all about stepping out, shooting jumpers, picking and popping. There’s no banging in there.
Dwight Howard is by himself. If he doesn’t get four rings I’ll be disappointed in him. There’s no one for him to go up against. When I was playing I had Ewing in his prime, I had Rik Smits, Arvydas Sabonis, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo. I had Vlade Divac, Kevin Duckworth. I caught some of David Robinson. Ostertag. Guys with size. Now, I couldn’t name five centers.
Dwight Howard and I don’t really have a relationship. I don’t like people who lack originality. The whole Superman thing doesn’t work for me. The first time I heard Howard being called Superman I was watching the dunk contest with my kids.
He lays down a marvelous dunk and Reggie Miller and Kenny Smith start saying, “Superman is in the building.”
So I’m thinking, Hmm, I believe that name is already taken. But I’m not getting into it. Hey, my little kids are running around with a little cape on and I’m not going to burst their bubble. The dunk Howard did was fabulous.
I didn’t really blame Dwight. I took it as a sign of disrespect from Reggie Miller and Kenny Smith. I’m not sure why they decided to give him my nickname.
There wasn’t much to be done about it, though. It’s not like Dwight is twenty-seven and I’m twenty-nine. He came along a little too late for me to make a statement about it. If I was the same age I would have killed him like I killed all those other guys.
Look, he’s a talented player. Very talented. I envy his jumping ability. He probably jumps four inches higher than I did at his age. His body is something. Genetics. And he works at it—I know that.
It’s kind of weird how he’s handled his career. He wants to be Superman. They’re talking about him going to LA when his contract is up. When I go back to the Orlando area on the off-season they are doing all the same things for him they did for me.
But that’s a mistake. He’s Dwight Howard. He’s not Shaq. Be your own man. Create your own brand
.
I do feel for him sometimes. It’s all on his shoulders, just like it was all on mine, and when he doesn’t get it done he’s the one standing there trying to explain, even though he put up huge numbers. Nothing changes in the NBA. It’s not always fun being Dwight Howard, but if you call yourself The Man, well, you gotta deal with it. When I complained about people dogging me in Orlando, Sarge would tell me, “Shut up. They’re paying you forty million dollars. You gotta take it.”
A couple of years ago I had a little fun at Dwight Howard’s expense. He’s a little thin-skinned, so I tweaked him. In 2008 I didn’t make the All-Star team and I was a little disappointed. We played Orlando right before the All-Star break, and they were fronting me and backing me. So I decided to stir up a little controversy. I started saying, “Superman, my ass. When I was a young fella I played all the great centers straight up—by myself. If you want respect, play me straight up.” So Dwight takes the bait, and now all through All-Star weekend everyone is talking about Shaq and my comments about Dwight Howard, even though I’m not playing in the game.
Dwight Howard said he could use more help around him. But if he wants to be a leader, he’s got to make a guy like Ryan Anderson feel important. Ryan Anderson isn’t a great player, but he can shoot. So when you get the ball, kick it to him once in a while for a three. Make him feel like he can play. Tell him, “Great job, man. You are the best shooter I’ve ever played with.”
When I watched Orlando against Atlanta in the 2011 playoffs, Dwight kept trying to do it himself. He wasn’t keeping the other guys involved, and they didn’t have any rhythm. So finally, in the fourth quarter when he tried to kick it out to them, it was too late.
It was interesting to watch the Miami Heat after they signed LeBron and Bosh. When I saw their “Big Three” I thought of two things: (1) they could be like the 72-10 team that Michael Jordan had in Chicago; and (2) “Get ready, boys. You are going to feel pressure like you’ve never known in your life.” LeBron, I think, was ready for it. The other two guys? I’m not sure. DWade is a clutch player, but he doesn’t like all the chatter. He wants good press. Anything negative gets him thinking about the wrong things.
Some guys come into the league without a ton of props, so there’s not a whole lot of pressure on them. Then they sign a big deal and all of a sudden they are thrown into the spotlight. Chris Bosh is like that. He’s getting all this attention, so he starts believing he’s really that good. C’mon now. We know better. He’s a player who can put up some numbers, but he’s not an elite player. He was in Toronto eight years and they were never a factor, never a playoff team. Don’t get with those other two guys and start pounding your chest. I ain’t buying it, and I’m not the only one.
People ask me all the time: If you had to choose between DWade and LeBron, which one would you take? Which one would you make the CEO?
It’s just a really tough question. LeBron is a better decision maker. DWade will hit more last-second shots. Lots of superstars in their position want and need to take that last shot. LeBron is more of an “opportunity” CEO. He’s not afraid to take the last shot, but he won’t hesitate to pass it to an open Mike Miller, either.
So where do those two guys measure up against Kobe? Kobe is a scientific dawg. He works out every day, practices every day. Most of the other stars are just dawgs, not scientific dawgs. Me, I’m a freak-of-nature dawg because of my size. LeBron could be a scientific dawg like Kobe, but he’s got a lot going on like I did, so that’s preventing him from being one.
Kobe will always have the edge because of his range and his killer instinct. LeBron has the killer instinct, but he can’t shoot like Kobe can.
I’ll be interested to see how DWade and LeBron do going forward. It was all about winning in 2011. There was so much pressure on them, they didn’t have time to worry about how many shots each of them were getting, or who was the number one dog, but that could change as they keep going.
When it was me and Kobe, I was the Top Dog. Point-blank. No discussion. But, as soon as Kobe got as good as me, I had to go. It wouldn’t have worked any other way. As I mentioned earlier, two alpha dogs means trouble.
I’m not sure if Kobe is going to listen to Mike Brown. LeBron never really did. Here’s what we do know: Kobe will definitely be in charge. He’s had so much success he’s going to do it his way. That’s a fact. And, at some point it’s going to come up that all that success was with Phil Jackson, so that’s a tough situation for Mike Brown to be in.
Mike Brown knows the game, there’s no question about that. But there was one thing I didn’t think was right when we were in Cleveland. We were a great defensive team and we had excellent schemes, and so Mike Brown developed this reputation as a sharp defensive coach. That’s fine, but the mastermind behind our defense was our assistant, Michael Malone. It was him. That dude was clever. His father, Brendan Malone, was a longtime assistant coach for Detroit and the coach of the Toronto Raptors, so he learned it from the womb. He’s got the knowledge. He went to New Orleans after Cleveland, and I bet he turns them into a great defensive team, too.
Of all the new players in the league, the one who raises my eyebrow is Blake Griffin. He plays hard, he’s a natural, and he came in from the word jump doing it. I saw him at the All-Star Game in 2011 and gave him some props. He deserves them. He’s the next great one in my mind. He’s athletic, he’s powerful. One night I was home watching him, and one of his guys threw him an off-balance lob and he still corralled it, brought it around, and threw it down for a reverse dunk. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
Kevin Love is putting up Moses Malone numbers and that certainly catches your eye, but his team is in last place. I don’t understand that. I don’t know Kevin Love, but what’s missing?
I love Kevin Durant. I love the way he plays. He’s aggressive. He’s fearless. He’s a quiet leader, seems to have a lot of poise. Russell Westbrook is a good sidekick with a lot of talent and a lot of confidence. He should probably pass the rock a little more to the big fella, though. (Hey, you know I’m going to say that.)
Derrick Rose is a great player, but, to be honest, I don’t know how he got the MVP over LeBron in 2011. I’ve seen a ton of great players, and in order for me to give you MVP props, I’ve got to see something different. I may be biased, but I’ve seen Mike, Dominique, Magic, Bird, David Robinson, Ewing. They brought something unique. Derrick Rose? Great player, but lay something on me I’m not expecting.
Yao Ming was something I had never seen before. I was so disappointed when I heard he was forced to retire. His career ended much too soon. He’s such a good guy, such a big, strong player. I respect his game. When he first came in I went right at him. I tried a few oopsy-doodles under the rim, and he blocked all three of them. So I had to turn my wrist on him. I had to start dunking, because my usual stuff didn’t work. All Yao’s strength came from his lower body. He was as strong as anyone I played. I couldn’t move him.
I think I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about Tim Duncan. One of the best ever. The Spurs have changed their offense to protect Timmy a little. He’s always been a team player, so you’ll never hear him complain. I ran into Gregg Popovich in the bathroom in the spring of the 2010–11 season, and I asked how Timmy was doing, and Pop said, “His knee is bone on bone.” He’s probably got only one or two years left.
It’s strange to see us all get to that point. They always warn you it’s coming, but you never really see it until it’s staring you in the face. Father Time is the only guy who ever stopped me on the basketball court.
I was lucky to have people in my life looking out for me and also calling me out when I needed it. There are five controllers of me: my mother, my father, my uncle Mike, my bodyguard, Jerome, and Dale Brown. If I do something and one of those five people call me and chew me out, then I know it’s wrong. My momma calls me every once in a while when I say something stupid in the media and she’ll say, “That wasn’t funny, boy,” so I have to say, “Sorry
, Momma.”
Most of the time Dale Brown and I communicated through e-mail, but if he saw something during a game that ticked him off he wouldn’t wait. He’d call me up after he saw Tim Duncan do a couple of pick-and-pops, and he’d say, “Shaquille, why didn’t you go right back at Duncan?” I’d tell him, “Coach, that ain’t my role anymore. It’s a different situation.” He’d get all worked up and say, “Well, then, why the hell did they bring you there?” and I’d say, “Now, Coach, it’s all about winning, remember?” Then he’d calm down and we’d have a nice conversation, and that would be it—until the next time I didn’t get enough touches for his liking.
My uncle Mike is one of my top advisors, a calmer, cooler version of my father. He’s not afraid to tell me if I messed up. He and Jerome were both New Jersey detectives, so they’ve done it all, seen it all. They are family. I know I can trust them, and when I have people around me I can trust it alleviates the pressure on my brain.
My father is still a force. That’s the best way to put it. Even now, when he’s battling some health issues, the fire is still there. He’s having a harder time with my retirement than I am. I told him that the Lakers said they are going to hang my jersey up there with Kareem and Magic and Jerry West. I thought it would cheer him up.
I can tell you it thrilled me. My time with the Lakers were the best basketball years of my life. Thanks, Dr. Buss, for putting our differences behind us.
I won’t be playing basketball anymore, but I’ve got to keep working out, keep my body from locking up. I have these exercises that Michael Clark gave me that I’ll have to do for the rest of my life.
First thing in the morning when I wake up, I put my leg on the wall and do lifts. Then I’ve got to stand with straight legs and reach back and engage my muscles in my rear end. If I don’t get those ass muscles to fire, then they shut off, and the hips shut off and my whole body goes to hell. That’s what happened in Miami.
Shaq Uncut: My Story Page 27