It was Christmas morning when I first started learning about the life and times of a young Wilt Chamberneezy (one of nine Shaq nicknames helpfully proffered by the inside flap of the book jacket. Are we going to work our way through the other eight? You bet your sweet Mike Bibby.). By bedtime the NBA season was four games old, and I had twelve hours of hard-watched opening day basketball under my belt. (It was my first Christmas with the new in-laws by the way. I'm sure they were all very impressed.) Suddenly, I didn't need to get my basketball fix by reading from Superman's (nickname #2) diary. I had live games to watch. Fresh commentary to read and listen to. My basketball battery was charged, and as I drifted off to sleep that night, the Big Shaqtus (3) and his eerily four right-angled goatee were but a fading memory in my mind.
And yet, the book lingered. Maybe it was laziness. Maybe it was the fact that we had a long plane ride home and there was no way I was prepared, mentally or physically, to delve into the 800-plus page Stephen King hardcover behemoth, 11/22/63 that I had also received for Christmas. (I am in no way a fan of the Kindle or the Nook, but for hardcover books with 500 or more pages, Technology, I can kinda see your point).
Whatever the reason, I pressed on. And actually, The Big Daddy's (4) memoir isn't that bad. I'm not sure how much Jackie MacMullan had to do with it, but The Big Aristotle (5) spins a fairly consistent, well-structured yarn. The stuff about his early years is interesting. Especially the fact that he was basically being groomed from a very early age (at least in hindsight) to be a professional basketball player. Whenever parents, step-parents, or grandparents doled out discipline or chased away bad influences, the reasoning inevitably circled back around to this is going to get in the way of basketball.
The book also had the requisite number of words devoted to Shaq Fu's (6) opinons of the various coaches and players he came into contact with during his playing days. These descriptions were alternately complimentary (Dwayne Wade, the C's big 3 & Rondo), illuminating (Phil Jackson & Pat Riley), reaffirming (Jerry West), and conflicted (Kobe). Nothing mean-spirited, but still candid and basically sincere. Shaq strikes me as a legitimate team player (taking less money so other talented players could be signed, offering his home gym as a practice facility) while at the same time, he doesn't appear to be what anyone would refer to as low maintenance. Whether it was hanging out in clubs until after curfew, lobbying for less practice time (so his body could recover), or operating with more body fat than his training regimen allowed, The Big Shamrock (7) was not a go with the flow type presence.
But what struck me most about Shaq wasn't the basketball stuff, it was the non-basketball: the music career, the movies, the tv shows. He seemed to be so proud of it all, and it all seemed to be so thoroughly mediocre. Whether he was recording a compilation album with other, more legitimate rappers, or shooting Kazaam, it seemed like, away from the court, Shaq simply followed the path of least resistance. He tried to do as much as he could simply for the sake of doing it, quality and craft be damned. (The exception that proves the rule: The Real Deal's (8) involvement with the vastly underrated Blue Chips, in which he plays a young, altruistic, even-gets-along-well-with-kindergarteners basketball player named Neon Budroe. (Not sure if I have the right spelling for Budroe. Imdb lists him only as "Neon." Hey internet movie database, you and I both know that character had a last name. Do your job.) Shaq's actually kinda halfway decent in his acting (read: he doesn't ruin the movie), and the picture itself holds up better than expected. That last press conference with Nick Nolte--the He's got the best players money can buy! speech has to be right up there with Al Pacino's the inches we need are all around us locker room pep talk from Any Given Sunday. By the way, did we really just go two parenthesis deep twice within the same parenthesis break? Yikes. I'll try to scale it back as we close this thing out.)
Possibly the best example of Shaq's shortcut compulsion was his reality show, Shaq Vs., in which Shaq was literally given shortcuts each week in competing with athletes from other sports. So if, say, Michael Phelps had to make it to the other end of the pool and back, Shaq would only have to make it to the other end. And if Shaq won? Well, I don't know exactly what that would prove. Maybe that Shaq was half the swimmer Phelps was? Way to go there, Diesel (9).
Of course another way to look at all this is to say that Shaq used his fame and notoriety to try out as many different things as he possibly could. And it's kinda hard to fault him for that. It cannot be denied that the guy has lived a full life. When you have conductor of the Boston Pops, Olympic gold medal winner, and honorary U.S. Deputy Marshall on your resume, it's hard to argue that you haven't been carpe dieming it up all over the place. Is that worth potentially sacrificing the chance to be one of the three best basketball players ever? Maybe. Probably? I honestly have no idea.
Rating: 4/10 Monocles
The Pretzel Shaq Most Resembles: The Pretzel M&M. Slightly gimmicky. Not quite as much thought put into the pretzel as you would like (too much dough, they should've used something more like a Pretzel Crisp). Tasty overall, but mostly because it's still an M&M and M&M's are delicious. Ultimately feels like there's something missing; vaguely unsatisfying no matter how many you eat.
