Written by Zach Harper | 04 March 2009

There are certain people in life that seem to get bored or frustrated that they aren't getting enough attention. And depending on where you see these people, when this happens there is always a great chance that they're going to try to feed that frustration or boredom by picking a fight.

We've all been there where there is a certain guy at a bar that from the moment he walks in, you can tell that he's looking for a fight. He's sizing everybody up. He's taking an inordinate amount of shots of the cheap stuff to ensure that he either has no regrets or no filter to make this fight happen. And I think that's what happened to Shaq over the past couple of days.

Now, I don't know if it was out of boredom or frustration. I'd put my money on frustration because Shaq has enough going on to keep him from being bored. He has a new coach to wrangle. He has Amare Stoudemire leaving 14 shots per game on the table for anybody to inhale. So he has enough on his mind to keep him busy. So that's what leads me to think that he's the guy in the bar who's looking for a fight to get out some pent-up aggression.

Where would this aggression come from?

Perhaps it came from people being surprised that Shaq still has some game left in him. It's hard for older players to let go of the game, especially when they feel like they have something left. It happened with Michael Jordan to some extent. It happened to Brett Favre. And it's happening with Shaq. He still thinks of himself as a top-notched player. He thinks this because he still commands a double team on just about every possession. Is it because teams are concerned with his skill? Or is it because teams are concerned with his size and brute strength? Personally, I think it's a pretty close to even combination of the two but it doesn't matter what I think. It matter what Shaq thinks.

Perhaps it was people questioning his All-Star selection. Perhaps, it was people thinking that it was a rouse that he received co-MVP in the All-Star Game. Perhaps, it was more than a decade of Kazam jokes. Whatever it is, it set him off against the Raptors and when he couldn't be stopped and Chris Bosh accused him of camping out in the lane to dominate, Shaq quickly fired back. He inexplicably called Chris Bosh the RuPaul of basketball. He claimed that he made Bosh and his teammates quit because he's too imposing. He puffed out his chest and showed that he was still a force to be reckoned with on and off the court. You don't want to get into a verbal spat with the big fella. And when he gets in a mood like this, you want to just let him cool off, sober up, and walk out of the bar to get into a cab instead of someone's face.

So when he faced off in a battle of Old Superman versus New Superman, Shaq had plenty of attention thrown his way for his comments and play over the past couple of days. He was on fire in terms of offensive effectiveness with 78 points in two games. And he was facing a spectacular force in the mold of himself in Dwight Howard. Perhaps, Shaq felt threatened by the young man's ascension up the big man ladder or maybe he was just trying to stir up some controversy for extra ratings and coverage. But whatever the reason was, Shaq attacked Dwight Howard's legitimacy in this league right now by saying he invented everything that Dwight had done in his young but impressive career. And that didn't sit well with Dwight's teammates or head coach. Dwight played him to a standstill in their game and even caused the big man to flop on a spin move to the basket from the young freak, which immediately tainted the big man face-off.

After the game, Stan Van Gundy threatened O'Neal's tact and sportsmanship, sighting something that Shaq has screamed against for years -- the flop. And Shaq in a fit of defensiveness or trying to drum up one of his famous "calculated" war of words fired back at Stan Van Gundy in a serious way:

   Via azcentral.com, "He (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. The one thing I despise is frontrunners. Yeah, he's got a young team playing good but don't be a frontrunner. Him and his brother and even the legend on the bench ain't done what I've done in my whole career. So flopping would be the wrong choice of words."

"Stan Van Gundy reminds me of a broke navigational system. He knows everything about everything but ain't never been nowhere. Think about that. If I'm right here and I type in the address of where you're going, I know where it's at but I'm not going there."

 

"When a bum says some (stuff) about it and I respond, you can (expletive) cancel that cuz 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 (in Miami). And you (expletive) print it just like that. Do I look soft to you like you can say something and I'm not going to say something?"

These are some harsh words and words that are more than a friendly jabbing or two that he now claims happened in his spat with Kobe. It seems like Shaq has officially taken this to a personal level in which he's trying to ruin SVG's reputation and any respect that a current player or future potential player would have for him. People around the league, especially young players, have a deep respect for Shaq and the way he views the league. So if he has it out for someone and wants to taint their name around the Association then there's a good chance that players are going to listen to him and take notice of what he's saying, whether it's true or not.

It was well known when Pat Riley took over for Stan Van Gundy during the year that the Heat won their title that Shaq was not a fan of Stan Van Gundy's. Everybody in the media and on the message boards hammered Pat Riley for being what Shaq accuses Van Gundy of being here -- a frontrunner. But now this might shed a different light on what the situation was back then. What if the only way that team comes together is for someone to step in and replace SVG because he can't handle the expectations and pressure?

Is any of this valid? Can we take a heated Shaq at his word that this is the situation? He often argues a point with ambivalent facts about how great he is or what he's accomplished. He asks people how orifices taste. He mentions obscure trannies from 15 years ago that implored that everybody "work it." He explains to us that Kobe doesn't want him in a place because he's threatened by the big man only to tell us all five years later that it was all something to drum up attention in a league that has never been more popular.

The issue here is that he's always going to get the last word in because most people take the high road either because the executives in their organization mandate that they do or because they don't want to get into a verbal war with a guy that makes up words to win. Shaq can't find anybody to tango with him when he's bored and certainly not when he's frustrated.

Despite his best efforts, Shaq is going to have to sleep this one of once again. He can't find that fight at the bar no matter how many verbal drinks he spills on people. Perhaps, it's time for Shaq to catch a cab and move along from the scene.

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