Like Shawn Marion, I only learned of the blockbuster Suns/Heat trade when I heard about it through the media. This is unacceptable. Next time, I expect a phone call at the very least.
What hasn’t been written about this trade already? Either Steve Kerr is a genius, or he’s a moron. Either Shaq is finished, or he isn’t. Either Shawn Marion was a paranoid malcontent or—OK, that part’s definitely true. Either way, no true evaluation will be possible until Shaq actually plays a game with his new team. So let’s re-address this when he does. In March.
One part of Shaq’s career that has been sorely overlooked these past couple of days has been the Shaq-Fu period. While his solo work was nothing more than a vanity project (of course Biggie was going to appear on a Shaq album. Why not?), I prefer to look back on his work with the Fu-Schnickens. Could you imagine LeBron James or Kevin Durant doing this? (Carmelo Anthony, maybe.) I know the rapping and the acting distracted Shaq from boring things like learning to shoot free throws and is part of the reason why he only has four rings now instead of six or seven. But how can you not love him for it?
(On another note, this is one of the best sneaker commercials of all time. For all kinds of reasons.)
• With the dunk contest fast approaching, it’s worth re-visiting the best NBA dunk contest dunk in the history of NBA dunk contests. When Jason Richardson pulled this one off—on the first try, no less—I remember just looking around the press section trying to figure out what the hell just happened. It was so fast and so perfect that no one had time to digest it. And then Jason missed a dunk in the final and wound up losing the contest to Fred Jones. Which is why dunk contests are stupid. Shouldn’t the guy who pulls off the best dunk of ALL-TIME win that year’s contest? But I digress. (I also don’t know why the only clip of it on YouTube is in Spanish.)
