Not a big fan of all the trash that Shaquille O’Neal has been known for talking all these years in interviews and press conferences. Where the majority find it funny and entertaining, I find it to be poor sportsmanship.  Never understood the need for someone who is so good at what he does, to talk so bad about his competition.  However, what happened yesterday didn’t bother me in the least.

First, a little background in case you somehow missed it. Stan Van Gundy, for whatever reason, took the opportunity to tell the media that he  was “shocked and disappointed” when he saw Shaq try to take a charge on Dwight Howard by flopping.  Was it a flop?  Probably so.  Even though Dwight Howard is a man-child, Shaq is still a monster that just doesn’t get knocked over. Van Gundy comes across here as very petty and whiny. This isn’t much of a shock.  The part that really bother me is when he said

“Let’s stand up and play like men, and I think our guy did that tonight.”

Come on Stan, you are kidding right? If you want that to be the case, you need to stop throwing your hands out in disgust at the refs whenever someone bodies up on D-Ho. I see you pop out of your seat every time the ball goes inside to him and he doesn’t convert the opportunity into points. You want them to play like men, stop whining like a little girl.

My words won’t reach Van Gundy.  But, that is okay, because the master at getting people on his side responded to Stan’s complaint in his own unique Shaqtastic way.

“He (Dwight Howard) came with the same old, stale Patrick Ewing move so I tried to stand there and take the charge. The new rules say if you come through, you fall. But as I fell, I realized that it was a flop and it reminded me of Coach Van Gundy’s whole coaching career. The one thing I despise is a frontrunner. First of all, none of his players like him. When it gets tough, he will become the master of panic like he did before and he will quit like he did before.

Oh, it gets better:

“When a bum says some (stuff) and I respond, you can (expletive) cancel that ’cause I know how he is in real life. We’ll see when the playoffs start and he (expletive) panics and quits like he did when he was here. Do I look soft to you like you can say something and I’m not going to say something?

Get’em Shaq! This is when I don’t mind Shaq firing back at someone. Van Gundy needed to let that one play go and not talk about it. It had no real impact on the game that his team won. All he wanted to do was lob a grenade at a player that he didn’t get along with while in Miami.

Stan, you want to play like men? Then, maybe you should be feeding the ball to that beast of a center you have rather than having your team chuck 25 3-pointers a night. The game is won in the paint, not beyond the arc. But go ahead and keep talking tough, right up until another team of yours flames-out in the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons (that was for GatorTrey and Knightro).

Popularity: 2% [?]