Shaq Uncut: My Story

[Charles Barry]

http://deadspin.com/5854904/in-new-b...yed-the-lakers

Shaq Uncut: My Story, the Diesel's new autobiography written with noted Around the Horn personage Jackie MacMullan, comes out November 15 and it dropped on our desk today. There's some juicy stuff in there, most obviously about the beef between Shaq and Kobe. We had always known that the feud took a turn for the worse during the 2003-04 season, but we never before knew what caused it. Now we have some insight.

Here's Shaq, on the Kobe feud:

So I'm on edge because I don't have a new deal, and Kobe is on edge because he might be going to jail, so we're taking it out on each other. Just before the start of the '03-'04 season the coach staff called us in and said, "No more public sparring or you'll get fined." ... Phil was tired of it. Karl Malone and Gary Payton were sick of it. ... So what happens? Immediately after that Kobe runs right out to Jim Gray and does this interview where he lets me have it. He said I was fat and out of shape. He said I was milking my toe injury for more time off, and the injury wasn't even that serious. (Yeah, right. It only ended my damn career.) He said I was "lobbying for a contract extension when we have two Hall of Famers playing pretty much for free." I'm sitting there watching this interview and I'm gonna explode. Hours earlier we had just promised our coach we'd stop. It was a truce broken. I let the guys know, "I'm going to kill him."

Kobe stands up and goes face-to-face with me and says, "You always said you're my big brother, you'd do anything for me, and then this Colorado thing happens and you never even called me." I did call him. ... So here we are now, and we find out he really was hurt that we didn't stand behind him. That was something new. I didn't think he gave a rat's *** about us either way. "Well, I thought you'd publicly support me, at least," Kobe said. "You're supposed to be my friend."

Brian Shaw chimed in with "Kobe, why would you think that? Shaq had all these parties and you never showed up for any of them. We invited you to dinner on the road and you didn't come. Shaq invited you to his wedding and you weren't there. Then you got married and didn't invite any of us. And now you are in the middle of this problem, this sensitive situation, and now you want all of us to step up for you. We don't even know you." ...
Everyone was starting to calm down when I told Kobe, "If you ever say anything like what you said to Jim Gray ever again, I will kill you."

Kobe shrugged and said, "Whatever."
[...]
From that day on, I was done dealing with Kobe. I was done dealing with Jim Gray, too. What goes around, comes around. When he got fired, he actually had the nerve to call me and ask me to help him out. What, did you lose Kobe's number?

On Young Kobe, braggart and tattletale:

He was so young and so immature in some ways, but I can tell you this: everything Kobe is doing now, he told me all the way back then he was going to do it. We were sitting on the bus once and he told me, "I'm going to be the number one scorer for the Lakers, I'm going to win five or six championships, and I'm going to be the best player in the game." I was like, "Okay, whatever." Then he looked me right in the eye and said, "I'm going to be the Will Smith of the NBA."

My first Lakers season we had a couple of rookies, and we hazed them pretty badly. We were dogging them out constantly. It was "Go get my bags, go get me something to eat." It was kind of a rite of passage in the NBA that a lot of teams do, but we probably went a little too far with it. One of the rookies—Derek Fisher—just took it. The other rookie—Kobe Bryant—ratted us out to Jerry West.

On Pat Riley:

My ticket out of Miami was punched in mid-February 2008. There was a lot of tension between Pat and the players. So we're about to start practice and Jason Williams comes in about ten seconds late. Pat being Pat, he starts swearing at him and screaming, "Get the hell out of here!"...

I tell Pat we're a team and we need to stick together, not throw guys out of the gym. Pat is screaming at me and says if I don't like it, then I should get the hell out of practice, too.

That's when I said, "Why don't you make me?"

I start taking a couple of steps towards Pat. Udonis Haslem steps in and I shove him out of the way. Then Zo tries to grab me. I threw him aside like he was a rag doll. Now it's me and Riley face-to-face, jaw to jaw. I'm poking him in the chest and he keeps slapping my finger away and it's getting nasty. Noisy, too. He's yelling "[expletive] you!" and I'm yelling back, "No, [expletive] you!"

Zo is trying to calm us both down and he has this kind of singsong panic in his voice. He keeps saying, "Big fella, no big fella, big fella!" I finally turn around and tell him, "Don't worry, I'm not going to hit the man. Do you think I'm crazy?"

[Olive Oil Goombah]

This should be good.

[JASPER BEARDLY]

thanks didn't know this was coming out

[Dirty Knowledge]

Shaq's a real good story teller....LOL @ him still mad at the HEAT for telling him he got FAT, LAZY, and was riding Wade's coattails. He also rode Zo's, which is funny, because Shaq always had a thing against Zo for no reason. You ask any one who actually watched those Finals -- Zo off the bench was big. Shaq deep down hated that. Especially in the decisive game when it was Zo making key plays down the stretch with Shaq benched.

And in the end, his rant vs Pat/HEAT front office turns in to "Let me make fun of Zo".

[Olive Oil Goombah]

LOL..riding Wades coattails.


what the fuck has Wade done with that team since Shaq left besides nothing until lebronny got there.


wade is disgustingly overhyped.

[Dirty Knowledge]

Shaq stopped caring about basketball around the Kobe beef...

Anyone who doesn't see that is DUMB AS FUCK

Shaq ALSO never was big on WORKING HARD...

FACT: Shaq NEVER worked on Free Throw Shooting.

Had he did, he'd prolly have 10,000,000 more points, may have an extra title or 2. And Lakers probably never lose a Playoff game.

But He relied on his size all his career

Good for him

He muscled around Chris Webber, Arvydas Sabonis, Rik Smits, Austin Croshere, Tyrone Hill, Theo Ratliff, an old ass Dikembe Mutumbo.....

But we all know what happened to his punk ass versus HAKEEM THE DREAM.....LOL

This whole book turns out to be Shaq Big Upping himself.....

And your D WADE hate is just pathetic.....one day you say he's GREAT, but not Kobe or LeBron level....next year you say he's OVER RATED....LOL

What has Wade done? Yeah he played with Ricky Davis and Chris Quinn and then Michael Beasley.....and never once bitched about it

UNLIKE SHAQ....

You're just a mad Heat/Wade hater.

It's okay OLD MAN

[Olive Oil Goombah]

blah blah, your so angry.


Wade is overrated when compared to true all time greats.

He's not on that level.

Lebron carried a bunch of role players to 60 win seasons.


Wade couldnt make it through a season and his team was either a lottery team or barely in playoff contention.


He's just not that great.


You are more of a wade dickrider than I am of a wade hater.


And everyone hates the heat, you should have accepted this by now. Its not going away. Worst thing is they havent even won shit, so its not like they hate them for that.

They just hate them for being a bunch of faggits.



They aint playin ball this year anyway.......i love it.

[CharlesJones]

That's funny what Brian Shaw was saying to Kobe hahahahahahahahaha. Kobe wants Shaq to support him during his rape case in Colorado but he won't support Shaq and come to his parties and wedding LOL. LOL@Shaq and Pat Riley about to fight hahahahahahahahahaha. I might check this book out. I read in the newspaper recently that he disses Lebron in his book also. He said Lebron is supposed to be the chosen one but he chooses to pass the ball often instead of scoring more. There's nothing wrong with Lebron trying to get his teammates involved because most scorers don't do that. At least Lebron can say he's gotten to the finals twice which most scorers can't say. Lebron will win some championships i hope LOL. It would've been nice to see him and Shaq get a championship while they were with Cleveland.

[Olive Oil Goombah]

he said lebron didnt listen to the coaches and delonte called the situation out once in a huddle. Cuz Brown was dogging Mo for not getting back on D, when Lebron never did either.

Not surprising LOL.

Poor Spoostra

[CharlesJones]

Lebron is a decent defensive player. Maurice Williams defense does suck LOL. I can't believe Mike Brown is the coach of the Lakers.

[CharlesJones]

Nicky, i disagree with what you're saying about Dwayne Wade. Dwayne is one of the top 5 players right now and he has been for awhile. He's very good. I haven't seen too many small guards like him dunk on people and he's scared of no one. He does have a championship and Lebron doesn't have one LOL.

[Olive Oil Goombah]

i dont care who he dunks on. Alot of 6'3 guards that wont ever play in the nBA can dunk on someone.

He's good...he's just not great.


And hasnt done much without GREAT teammates.