You know the NBA season is in full swing when we start hearing the annual boo-hooing out of L.A. about poor picked-on Shaquille O'Neal.
As he does annually, Shaq is complaining that bully-boy opponents are giving him the business.This year, O'Neal is taking his objections to new heights. He got tossed out of a game against Portland for objecting to rough treatment, then promised to get revenge against his tormentors. Then he got into a tussle with Houston's Charles Barkley that resulted in one-game suspensions for each player. Five games into L.A.'s season, Shaq had been ejected twice.
The behemoth center appears intent on letting everyone know, early in the season, that he doesn't plan to be the league punching bag.
Fine. But I can't help feeling this is something cooked up by new Laker coach Phil Jackson -- who was fined for calling the officials "awful" for allowing what he felt were flagrant fouls against Shaq in Portland -- to convince foes that it won't be wise to hack his center.
It didn't necessarily have to be the result of Jackson and O'Neal sitting down to plot together; it may have been just a couple casual suggestions by Jackson that if O'Neal is really concerned about getting hammered, he might have to do some hammering back. And it might be a good idea to do it early in the season, before teams make Hack-A-Shaq a regular part of their game plan.
In the fourth quarter of a game a week ago, Mavericks coach Don Nelson instructed a trio of less-valuable players to immediately throw a bear-hug on O'Neal every time he caught the ball in the vicinity of the basket. The ploy didn't work, since O'Neal made half of the resulting free throws, more than enough for L.A. to avoid a Mavericks comeback.
Other teams are less obvious about committing their fouls, which means they probably get away with a few of them. After all, O'Neal is a very large man, and NBA referees have a tendency to take into account relative size of the fouler and foulee when determining whether to assess a foul.
On the other hand, at least with Nelson's tactic the Mavs made sure that: (1) a foul got called, and (2) O'Neal didn't manage to fling up a shot and turn it into a three-point play.
Jackson afterward said the Mavs' strategy was Nelson's attempt to "screw a game up." Nelson acknowledged that it was "not fun to watch" but defended his decision, saying, "the guy shoots 57 percent from the field and 35 from the line. It makes sense."
O'Neal's real objection to this unkind treatment is that it embarrasses him. It brings into sharp focus the fact that he can't deliver when the spotlight is on. We've heard time and time again that he can make free throw after free throw in practice, so what conclusion do we draw? That's he's not strong enough in the cerebrum to get over this mental block he's got about free throws. He's got the foul-line yips, and he doesn't handle it well when opponents remind him about his weakness by sending him to the line.
"I'm probably just trying too hard, because I want to shut all you (media) guys up," is O'Neal's explanation. "That's the only 'but' I've got in my life. Everything else I'm perfect at. Perfect albums, perfect movies, perfect low-post game, perfect life. 'But he's not a great free-throw shooter' -- I always hear it."
O'Neal's foray into perfect unreality aside, the question should be asked: Should teams feel any qualms about using the Hack-A-Shaq strategy? No, unless they're using it as an excuse to hurt the guy. As in any sport, you try to exploit the opponent's weakness. Is it cowardly to hit to the backhand of a tennis player who doesn't have one? Is it unsportsmanlike to throw curveballs to a hitter who can't hit one? Of course not.
And do you really think the average player is eager to take a shot at a guy who is 7-foot-1 and approximately 1/6th of a ton? Get real. As Jerry Sloan tells us often enough, most players don't want to touch their opponents, much less give them a whack.
At any rate, other teams will continue to use such ploys until Shaq learns to shoot free throws or the NBA increases the hoop size to, say, roughly the size of a wading pool.