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 When Shaquille O’Neal was much, much younger and a good deal smaller, too, he chose as a role model one of the most successful big men in NBA history.
“When I came into the league, I wanted to compete with Bill Russell for titles,” O’Neal said Tuesday, with Russell’s 11 championship banners hanging above him at a news conference to mark his signing with the Boston Celtics. “That’s not going to happen, but I’d like to almost get half of what he got.”
With four titles and a Hall of Fame career already on his resume, newly christened “Big Shamrock” signed a two-year deal with the Celtics at veteran’s minimum, forgoing more lucrative offers to join the defending Eastern Conference champions for a run at another championship or two.
A crossover celebrity who has appeared in feature films and his own TV show, O’Neal joked about his new nickname, his fear that his kids will develop a Boston accent and trying to beat new teammate Glen “Big Baby” Davis in a chowder-eating contest.
But he was serious when he talked about his legacy.
“Do I have the same hunger? Yes. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” O’Neal said. “I don’t like wasting my time. I don’t like wasting anybody’s time. At the end of the day, when I close the book, it’s all about winning.”
The news conference to introduce O’Neal wasn’t the usual type for a backup, 38-year-old center who will be paid about $1.3 million a year. There were a dozen TV cameras, perhaps 50 reporters in all and a couple hundred beaming schoolchildren in the bleachers, taking a break from their basketball camp next door.
Also in the gym: Kevin Garnett, who promised O’Neal he would fly back from Hawaii to be there.
“To me this is a very exclusive event,” said O’Neal, who wore a gray pinstriped suit and a black bow tie. “It’s my last (introductory) press conference. I just wanted to be very, very sharp.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/2010/08/10/2010-08-10_shaquille_oneal_introduced_as_newest_member_of_boston_celtics.html#ixzz0wG2KPPRc
 Shaquille O’Neal has changed The Big Three of the Boston Celtics into a Very Big Four.
The 7-foot-1, 325-pound center in the twilight of a brilliant career is coming to the Eastern Conference champions, hoping to add to his four NBA titles.
O’Neal signed a two-year contract worth about $3 million on Wednesday, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said on condition of anonymity because no details were released.
So this is where Shaq’s colorful career will end after 20 seasons if he completes his contract with the Celtics.
One of the NBA’s most charismatic players will finish with a legendary franchise on the parquet floor beneath 17 championship banners and the retired numbers of Bill Russell, Larry Bird, John Havlicek and other NBA greats.
After receiving little interest from other teams, O’Neal will play on that floor with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, Boston’s “Big Three” since Garnett and Allen arrived before the 2007-08 season
From the first pick in the 1992 draft out of Louisiana State to dominant, rim-rattling inside force to complementary player, O’Neal’s NBA travels have taken him to six teams and 15 All-Star games. He is the fifth leading scorer with 28,255 points and 14th in rebounds with 12,921 in league history. He’s averaged 24.1 points, 11.0 rebounds and 2.3 blocks and was the NBA MVP in 2000.
ABC’s reality show ‘Shaq VS’ is all set to telecast the Second Season of the show in August.
The premiere episode of the ‘Shaq VS’ Second Season, “Shaq VS Dale Earnhardt Jr.,” will see the four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal race head to head at Concord Speedway in North Carolina against Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR’s most popular driver and recent winner of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway.
However, unlike the previous season where Shaq took on athletes at the top of the game, this time around there the star will have a face-off in non-athletic events as well. The ‘Shaq VS’ Season 2 has some interesting episodes lined up and the Cleveland Cavaliers player is lined up to have a face-off with Justin Bieber. This interesting episode is to be aired later this year.
The basketball star is likely to take on Justin Bieber in a crooning or perhaps a dancing competition. Being celebrities at two ends of the spectrum age-wise, height-wise and career-wise the “Shaq Vs Justin Bieber” episode is already creating a buzz everywhere. Shaq is usually given a handicap advantage and is put through some training before the actual contest. When asked about how he will deal with his competition, Shaquille O’Neal had this to say, “To beat them, you have to become them”.
‘Shaq VS’ is produced for ABC by Dick Clark Productions and Media Rights Capital starring Shaquille O’Neal of the Cleveland Cavaliers and has Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal, Scott Messick and Perry Rogers as the Executive Producers.
 The lights went out, the courts darkened and a media day already like no other in Cavaliers history was cancelled after just two hours.
Maybe with LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal, Cleveland has too much superstar power.
The duo’s first public appearance together as teammates was cut short Monday when the electricity went out at the Cavs’ fabulous suburban training facility, forcing the team to improvise for O’Neal’s interview and re-schedule the event for a later date. While it might seem the high-profile James-O’Neal pairing could seemingly overload any circuit, high winds were blamed for the outage. Even before the building dimmed at 3:41 p.m., it was already evident that James and O’Neal are the NBA’s newest marquee act.
More than 150 media members swarmed on Cleveland Clinic Courts for their first chance to talk to the larger-than-life all-stars, whose road trips with the Cavs this season may be more look more like one of U2′s world tours than, say, back-to-back games in Detroit and Indianapolis.
Look out, here they come.
“Day One of the madness,” Cavaliers guard Mo Williams said, surveying the horde of cameras, microphones and reporters.
The Cavs acquired O’Neal in June, shortly after they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Orlando Magic. Cleveland, which won 66 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs and still came up short of a title, had tried to land the big man from Phoenix before the all-star break but general manager Danny Ferry wasn’t able to complete a deal until after the season.
Continue
The Cleveland Cavaliers, in a bold stroke aimed at winning the championship, acquired O’Neal from the Phoenix Suns on Thursday, in a stunning trade that will have ramifications across the league.
The deal sparked a swift reaction from the Orlando Magic, which acquired guard Vince Carter from the Nets hours after the O’Neal trade became official.
O’Neal, a 15-time All-Star, will join LeBron James, the league’s reigning most valuable player, to form one of the most powerful tandems in the league. The Cavaliers were already an elite team — winning an N.B.A.-best 66 games last season — but one that was missing star power, or reliable scoring, beyond James. That will no longer be a problem. Even at 37, O’Neal remains a threat in the low post. He averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds for the Suns last season, played in 75 games (his highest total in four years) and was named to the all-N.B.A. third team.
“Our goals are aligned with what our players want, including LeBron, and that’s to win a championship and win it next year,” Cavaliers General Manager Danny Ferry told reporters in Cleveland. “We don’t want to be patient.”
With O’Neal, Cleveland has an answer to Orlando’s Dwight Howard, who bulldozed through the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. Continue
Check a few posts down to find out how you can guarantee yourself a signed Shaquille O’Neal card! 3 cards still available!
Follow the link below for a humerous look into things smaller than Shaq.
When Dwight Howard broke the shot clock with a monster dunk in the Eastern Conference Finals, it brought back fond memories of young Shaq.
On April 23, 1993, in one of the most famous basketball plays of all time, Shaquille O’Neal brought down the basket on a dunk while playing the New Jersey Nets.
He didn’t just bring it down—he slammed it down. The metal support snapped in half, and O’Neal couldn’t get out of the way before the 24-second clock crashed down on his back.
It was shocking. It was all over the news. Here was a guy like we’d never really seen in the NBA. We’d seen big centers, but nothing like this 300-plus-pound monster who was so powerful and merciless that even the equipment couldn’t stand up to him.
And he was a rookie. Continue
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