Shaq Uncut

September 26, 2011
The retired NBA giant with the huge game and personality to match dominates in this boisterous, peevish memoir. O’Neal is surprisingly generous towards his stepfather, a man who, he claims, disciplined him with frequent beatings while nurturing his basketball talent. He’s testier towards Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant, who comes off as an aloof ball-hog, Utah star Greg Ostertag—“he was mouthing off again, so I turned and slapped him upside the head”—and anyone else who doubted or dissed him. Paced as if by shot-clock, the meandering narrative flits between arena, locker-room and an off-court life lived large—“The guy buys me a $150,000 Rolex watch for shaking his hand”—on hundreds of millions of dollars in salary, endorsements, movie parts, rap albums, reality show, and self-satisfied smirking. (“I am Shaq. Bigger than life, brother. Bigger than life.”) Braggadocio aside, O’Neal has intriguing insights into the fraught group dynamics of a sport where positional roles are uniquely ill-defined: the persistent tension between automatically passing the ball to the star and giving lesser teammates a shot; the rivalry between “alpha dogs” and up-and-comers; the slightly jealous mentoring of young phenoms by aging, diminished veterans. Preening and prickly, Shaq’s reminiscences illuminate the knotty psychology behind the swagger. Photos.

September 15, 2011

Ubiquitous NBA superstar O'Neal offers an entertaining, if undeniably self-serving chronicle of his unique career.

The self-styled "Big Aristotle" is unquestionably one of the most dominant players ever to grace the hardwood; he's also one of the game's biggest characters. With an assist from veteran basketball writer MacMullan (co-author with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson: When the Game Was Ours, 2010), O'Neal  details an impoverished childhood lacking in material things but filled with strong influences, ranging from his grandmother to his stepfather, "Sarge," a strict disciplinarian who helped curb the young O'Neal's occasionally wayward tendencies. After a storied college career at LSU, O'Neal moved on to a dominant run in the NBA, from his early career in Orlando to his title-laden days as a Los Angeles Laker to his role as sidekick to young superstar Dwayne Wade in Miami. Despite his gregarious nature and an ever-adoring public (as evidenced by his inexplicable success as a rapper), acrimonious departures from NBA cities became something of a recurring theme throughout O'Neal's career, circumstances he goes to great lengths to portray in a manner that casts him in the best possible light (PR-savvy veteran that he is, however, he places just enough blame on himself to bolster the veracity of his claims). Shameless self-promotion aside, the "Diesel" has a talent for entertaining, whether he's suggesting that a jibe from President Obama ruined Celtics' point guard Rajon Rondo's jump shot or ruminating on the complicated nature of his relationship with Kobe Bryant. Question his free-throw shooting ability or willingness to absorb his share of responsibility when things go wrong, but it's hard to question his charisma.

Symbolic of Shaq's career: consistently captivating, but you can't help but feel he left something on the table.

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