Shaquille O'Neal Retires: Olympus beckons for Big Aristotle

Shaquille O'Neal has retired and the NBA has lost one of it's born entertainers. The league, and the sporting landscape in general, will be poorer for his departure.

He entered the league with the inevitable comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain, succeeded Wilt in rings won while owning basketball in Los Angeles, won a ring with "Flash" and then turned into a role-player for hire. At times the most overwhelming inside the force the game has seen (remembering Chamberlain often favoured the fadeaway jumper to show he had skills as well as size), he played nineteen years in the league, won four Championships and took part in probably the best feud the NBA has ever seen that didn't involve Charles Oakley.

Even after his athleticism declined he remained a viable second option in Phoenix and Cleveland, before becoming an overstated but important part of the 2011 Celtics. The list of players assembled around him is notable for its extreme quality and without question, his enormous on-court presence added to each of their collective legacies. At times, even he seemed amazed by his remarkable mix of power and explosiveness. While his lithe early years showcased a more fluid offensive game (his first NBA bucket was a fadeaway jumper from 12 feet), he didn't have the breadth of experience that's shaped him into the statesman he is now.

Though his game was extraordinary and a thing of awesome power, the most appealing part ofabout Shaquille O'Neal wasn't necessarily those skills.It is his lighthearted nature. He was, and remains, a fun guy to be around. While others treated the NBA like a game of life and death, Shaq played in the league.

His early years in the league marked him one of the sport's rising cross-media stars. He rapped, did Shaq-Fu, acted (mostly terribly - have you seen Kazaam?) and won scoring titles. He went to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996 to pursue those interests and after the demise of Jordan's Bulls, led the Lakers to three straight NBA Championships. In each Finals he was unstoppable despite the best efforts of designated "Shaq-stoppers" like Dale Davis, Dikembe Mutombo and (cough) Todd MacCulloch. As well as owning the lane at both ends, he had finally developed the inner steel to back his outer confidence leading his teams to destroy the title aspirations of many of the league's recent greats. No-one was stopping the Lakers during that time - not Allen Iverson, Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin, Jason Kidd, Dikembe Mutombo or Kenyon Martin.

He walks into the sunset boasting a more garrulous and accessible media profile than any athlete since Magic Johnson, all part of a man with myriad off-court interests. He has maintained a strong interest in law enforcement and in keeping with his multimedia empire announced his retirement through Tout, a new video-sharing form of Twitter. No-one gave pressers or interviews like Shaq. That his first target here is the notoriously intense Kevin Garnett - who responded well - says volumes about the way his teammates responded to his slightly alternative methods of communication in 2011. When he owned the NBA at the turn of this decade, Shaq played in the league.

Perhaps his background, growing up an Army brat watching his mother and stepfather work for everything they had gave him this unique viewpoint, a sense of perspective allowing him to understand life was bigger than the twenty-nine NBA cities he frequented. To play basketball, be a cross-media baron and basically to do what he wanted with life was fun - and fun things are to be enjoyed. So he did. This awareness contributed to his movement from being thought of as a young punk to being respected across the entire spectrum of the league. As a spokesman for the league in 2011, there are few who speak with the authority - and intelligence - that he does.

In a poll on ESPN today, 72% of respondents said the thing about Shaq they'd remember most outside basketball wasn't the feud or Blue Chips, it was his outgoing media style which prompted his self-appointed moniker "Big Aristotle" among many others. Critics may suggest that these outside activities took his focus away from the game but when a man has four NBA rings, it's a difficult game suggesting he didn't earn them.

Shaquille O'Neal leaves behind a trail of devastation unseen since Willis Reed's (very different) NBA tour of duty. He also leaves behind thousands of happy memories.

Image of Kazaam courtesy: fixingflicks.net

Image of Shaq dunking on David Robinson c1992 courtesy: bleacherreport.com

Why Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers is so important

When he comes to Portland, go and see him. Atlanta, too. Hell, if he comes to Tootgarook, he’ll pack the house.

I’m waxing lyrical about Blake Griffin, the NBA’s standout rookie of 2010-2011. Astonishingly, he plays for the Los Angeles Clippers whose name has been the shorthand for crap in American sports for the entire length of their existence.

After spending all of his first year in the league injured, Griffin is making up for those lost minutes this season. He’s currently averaging 22.5 points, 12.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists per contest, about on par with the all-time greatest modern-era rookie seasons (by Michael Jordan and David Robinson). The last twenty-seven straight games he`s tallied double figures in both points and rebounds, while his 47 points against Indiana on Martin Luther King Day were the most by any player this year.

Not only do his skills get results, but those results come in the most incredible manner. Griffin’s game is predicated on his nonpareil athleticism and his first thoughts are to dunk on his opponent, whoever it is, time and again. Even the increasing numbers of hoop-o-philes who think the dunk is overrated love seeing Griffin cram it down on yet another big fella. This has led him to be the most searched basketballer on YouTube and his three dunks on the New York Knicks in December have become the stuff of legend. He’s got “Dunk of the Year” all sewn up, and probably the minor placings as well. Blake Griffin would throw it down on a T-Rex.

(Hint: watch the clip, it’s going to be important later on)

And he’s the most important player in the NBA right now.

This young man, who displays all the likeable aspects of Shawn Kemp’s early years (before the before the sulking-about-Jim-McIlvaine’s-contract era, well in advance of the dozen-ish paternity suit era and definitely pre the “Why is he wearing a fat suit”? years) and none of the sass that has come to characterise today’s NBA players could represent the most marketable force that David Stern has at his command for the next decade.

The NBA is in a tough place right now. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement finishes at the end of this season and Players Union and the Owners Collective seem too far apart in negotiations as to the division of the $4 billion revenues of the NBA is shared between players and owners. If they can’t agree on a new pay scale, it will result in a “lockout” where owners shut down the league until a compromise is reached. The players aren’t paid, the owners don’t get the crowd/concession dollars and it’s eminently possible the 2011-2012 NBA season just won’t happen.

When the NBA resumes –before or after the new season is called a wash – it’s going to need to market itself as new, exciting and most importantly of all, able to keep its own house in order. It’s only now the NHL has recovered from their 2004-05 lockout behind concepts like the Winter Classic, a new All-Star Game format and most importantly, marketable stars who can be divided along comic book lines into heroes and villains. For the heroes, Canada’s Own Sidney Crosby is the man every mother wants their daughter to marry; while the villains sport the Washington Capitals Russian sniper Alex Ovechkin, who looks like a Bond villain and loves to be the enemy. Younger guys like Steven Stamkos, Milan Lucic and John Tavares are the next generation in hockey’s goodies-versus-baddies evolution.

The NBA are going to promote heavily to reattract attention to a league, which while still in good health, hasn’t been able to cope with Michael Jordan’s 1998 departure from Chicago. Major market teams – with the exception of the Los Angeles Lakers – have slumped over the past decade: New York’s revitalisation this year is their first whimper of competitiveness in ten years, Chicago have had a few good teams but many years of heartache. Despite a recent revival, the same could be said for the Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks and Houston Rockets. The LA-based Clippers have been a laughing stock their entire existence.

One potential league-defining player after another has come into the game – first Shaq, then Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Vince Carter, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and now Blake Griffin – and none of them have managed to excite and capture the imagination of fans and mug punters alike like MJ. Several have had major and public flaws which decrease their market potential: Kobe his much-publicised run in with the law in Colorado; Allen Iverson was perhaps too “ghetto” for White America; Vince Carter’s career highlight was this dunk in the 2000 Sydney Olympics – and hasn't been the same since, quitting on every pro team he's ever been on. LeBron James’ 2010 was the greatest heel turn in Pro Sports history as he ditched hometown Cleveland for the sun, women and decreased responsibility of Miami. Durant – still plies his trade in Oklahoma City, perhaps the league’s smallest market and is, like Griffin, a low-key guy so execs are faced with the unenviable task of selling a small-town, low-key Midwest guy to New Yorkers or Southern Californians.

With LeBron now joining the “baddies” of Miami, the NBA needs a star in a big market who the crowds can get behind and support; the type of guy where people tune into SportsCenter just to see what amazing stuff he’s done. LeBron was the league’s best hope to be that amazing, likeable fella but when he “took my talents to South Beach”, his heel turn was rivalled only by American Hero Hulk Hogan joining the nWo. Griffin is David Stern’s best hope to be the frontman for The Rebel Alliance against the dark tyranny of a LeBron/Wade/Bosh led Empire.

Why can he do such things? Going back to the video clip, did you see how he reacted after posterizing the Knicks’ Center Mozgov? He was fully aware of how incredible he’d just been, but celebrated only mildly with his teammates, then went and sank the free-throw he’d earned by giving Mozgov a groin to the face. No crazy spinning in circles, no screams. Contrastingly, Carter’s dunk over Weis led “Half Man, Half Amazing” to scream like a monkey on heat. There’s no comparison. People get behind Blake Griffin because he doesn’t strut – “strutting” and “Oklahoma” seem mutually exclusive, don’t they? He just wants to play basketball. And if he plays basketball, he gets to dunk on chumps.

Much like the guy whose aggressiveness he resembles (Kemp), he’s also a Hall-of-Fame type talent, only Griffin seems grounded enough to not let the fame, floozies and transfats go to his head – or arse, delete as appropriate. He could average 24/14 for twelve years and with his talents combined with those of SG Eric Gordon, there’s the chance he could win one of the toughest battles in sport and lead the Clippers – the Clippers! – into respectability. Should he stay healthy – touch wood – Blake Griffin, his dunks and his simple ordinariness is what the NBA can build around when the coming lockout ends. Not quite 22 years old, he can be the face of the league as the NBA battles to regain popularity in the crowded US sports market.