I know. Stupid. But Ostertag hit the deck like I had slugged him or something. I got him with an open hand. He was curled up on
the ground moaning, “My contact lenses.” It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for him. I wasn’t playing in the game that night because I was recovering from a torn abdominal muscle, but I knew right away I had just gotten myself into some trouble.
The league suspended me one game and fined me ten thousand dollars. But that was nothing compared to what Jerry West did to me. He got right up under
my chin and blasted me. “I won’t tolerate that kind of childish behavior. Ever. Do you hear me?” he said. “You embarrassed yourself, your team, your parents, and this organization. How do you want people to perceive you? As a bully who does stupid things, or a champion who is a serious ballplayer? You better decide. Now you will apologize to Greg Ostertag and the Utah Jazz, and you will apologize
to the Los Angeles Lakers. And if you do something like this again, I’ll trade you.”
Whoa. Okay.
We won sixty-one games in ’97–’98, but once again we lost to Utah, only this time it was in the Western Conference Finals, and this time we got swept.
I averaged 30 points, 10 rebounds, and almost 3 blocks in the playoffs that spring—good D, Ostertag—but nobody cared about that. The new knock was
Shaq couldn’t even win a game in a big series. First the Rockets had swept us while I was in Orlando and now the Jazz with me in LA.
As soon as we got into our locker room, I lost it. I knew what was
going to happen. The papers were going to say I didn’t know how to win, that I was a choker, that I didn’t care enough. After all the work I put in, all the numbers I put up, it was Orlando all over
again and I just couldn’t take it.
Just thinking about it got me so damn crazy. Some of the guys were pissed off, like I was. Kobe, for one, wasn’t happy. But then I heard Nick and Eddie talking about going to Vegas. They were already on to the next thing, so now I’m even more revved up.
The TV and video equipment are against the wall and I whack it off the stand and kick the crap out of it.
Then I go to my locker and I start ripping all my stuff out. My clothes, my shoes, everything. It’s flying all over the place.
Then I go into the bathroom and I tear the stall off the door with one hand. I smash that to the ground. Next, I grab the urinal and rip it right off the wall. They say sometimes people don’t know their own strength. I knew mine. I was in a complete rage and I wanted
to destroy everything in my path.
Nobody is trying to stop me because they know better. They are terrified, and they should be. Jerome is outside the locker room because he’s the team security guard, so someone runs out and grabs him because they figure he can talk some sense into me.
But Jerome knows me. He knows how I think. He tells them, “Just stay away from him. It will only last about
thirty seconds. Let him blow it off and then he’ll be back to normal.”
So everyone is staying as far away from me as possible until Jerry West comes flying into the locker room. He grabs me and says, “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“I’m tired of losing,” I told him. “I’m busting my ass every night and I’m tired of it always being my fault.”
“And this is how you expect to win?” West
said. “Listen to me. I went to the Finals nine times before I ever won a damn thing. Nine times and I
never
acted like this. You’re supposed to be our leader. You’re supposed to be the one they look to when things go bad. And
this is what you come up with? If you want to win so badly, then learn how to be a leader. Stop trashing the bathroom and get back in there and sit down.”
I did what he
told me to do. I went back and I sat down. Jerome was right. My rage passed after about thirty seconds.
Jerry West wasn’t done talking to me. He explained to me how every player is different. Some guys care too much and some guys act like they don’t care at all, even though they do. I said to him, “If I’m getting all the blame, they better fucking care.”
Back then guys who were too cool to care
drove me crazy. Nick Anderson was like that in Orlando, and Eddie Jones was the same way in LA. He’d freeze up in a tight situation, then act like it was no big deal. So, as a young player, the way I tried to get guys like him to perform was to threaten to put my hands on them.
My dad had always motivated me with the threat of physical violence and it always worked. So I guess that was all I
knew. I can tell you it didn’t work with Eddie Jones at all. When I towered over him and challenged him, all it did was (1) scare the living shit out of him, (2) make him conclude I was nuts, and (3) ultimately make him decide to ignore me.
Jerry West had a lot of different conversations with me. He knew I had big shoes to fill. He talked with me a lot about Kareem, how he took such great care
of his body and never got hurt because of things like yoga and his diet. He told me what set Abdul-Jabbar apart was his focus.
“You could learn a lot from Kareem,” Jerry West said.
I agreed, except Kareem was never around. And, whenever I did see him, he usually ignored me. The disappointing thing to me was, being in LA all those years and trying to fill those shoes, I would have liked to have
a conversation with him.
He’d say hello, but I was looking for “Hey, do this” or “Watch out for that.” He knew everyone was comparing me to him. He knew better than anyone what I was up against, but he gave me nothing.
Being mindful of the history of the game, one of the first commercials I ever did for Reebok as a rookie in 1992 was one that included all the great centers.
The commercial opens
with me standing on a court, knocking on this imaginary door to the hallowed kingdom of the big men. Bill Russell is looking through the slot and he says: “Password.” I answer, “Don’t Fake the Funk on a Nasty Dunk.” Russell barks, “ID.” I show him my Shaq logo. He says, “You’re early.” I say, “I’m ready.” I walk in and there’s Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Walton, Bill Russell, and Kareem wearing suits
with their arms folded, waiting and watching. I start at the foul line and throw down a nasty, nasty dunk that shatters the backboard. I’m standing there holding the rim in my hands, then I give them one of my very best Shaquille The Deal grins. Kareem says, “That’s not enough,” and hands me a dustpan. The commercial fades with my voice saying, “I guess that’s some kind of rookie thing.”
It was
my idea to have the legends in the shoot. It was a sign of respect, and I made sure they all got a nice paycheck for doing the commercial. You’d think it might have led to a relationship or something, but it really didn’t, except for Bill Russell. He was cool then, and he’s cool now. We hit it off and have had many conversations through the years. He has always treated me with great respect, and
I’ve always valued his opinion and his guidance. I’m humbled that he bothered to take an interest in me.
A few years after we filmed the commercial I saw Wilt in a restaurant in Beverly Hills. He was sitting there with his back to me, and Jerome said, “Aren’t you going to say hello?” I said I didn’t want to bother him, but I kept hoping Wilt would come over and say, “Hey, big fella.” He never
did.
He died right after that. I loved Wilt. I used to call him my godfather, and I wanted to buy his house sort of as a tribute. It was nice, but it was kind of old and it would have cost too much to fix it up, so I ended up passing on it.
Once I got to the Lakers I saw Kareem all the time, but he just
didn’t want to deal with me. It went on like that for years. We were at the All-Star Game
in 2006, and I saw him in the parking lot and I said to my uncle Mike, “Watch this.” He walked by and I said, “Hey, Cap.” He muttered hello and kept on moving.
Jerry West said one of Kareem’s biggest weaknesses was he had trouble relating to his teammates. He kept reminding me that was one of my strengths.
“People like you,” Jerry told me. “They’re drawn to you. You are a natural leader. That
big personality of yours is one of your biggest weapons, unless you use it the wrong way.”
And, whenever I did use it the wrong way, I knew Jerry West would be coming for me. My first 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.
Talk about a bad start with your veteran teammates. Jerry called me into his office and absolutely crucified me. He was really ticked off about it. “The kid is eighteen years old, and the two of you can win five championships if you just
work together, and already you’re down his throat,” he said. “What the hell are you thinking? Be smarter than that. Be a leader!”
If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn it was Philip Harrison talking to me.
Just like Sarge, I couldn’t get anything past Jerry West.
In the summer of 1998 we were locked out while the owners tried to squeeze some money out of us. We were all told it might be a
while before we played any basketball. It was. Our first game that season wasn’t until February, and when we got the call that the games were on again, most of the guys were out of shape—except for Kobe.
They fired Del Harris after twelve games into the shortened season and hired Kurt Rambis for the rest of the season. He quickly aligned himself with Kobe.
Kobe was starting to get comfortable
in the league. He started doing too much and taking everyone else out of their rhythm. I told him, “Hey, you’ve got to play team ball,” and he always had an answer back. Anything you told him or suggested to him, he always had a comeback. I don’t think he ever said, “Yeah, sure, thanks. That’s a good idea.”
Rambis had made Kobe the golden child, so everyone was afraid to question the kid. I wasn’t
afraid of anyone. I was going to say what was on my mind whether people liked it or not.
We were in Sacramento and we were losing, so we called a team meeting. No coaches—just players. Every time Kobe started with his one-on-one nonsense, we were tired of hearing “He’s just a kid—let it go.” Guys were saying stuff under their breath about him, and that’s never good.
In the meeting one guy after
another stood up and said they were tired of the “golden child” getting special treatment. Kobe just sat there. He didn’t say anything.
Kurt was eavesdropping outside, so he busted in and threw in his two cents’ worth which was, “Well, you guys were young and selfish once.”
Right, Kurt. And how is that working out for Kobe? Three air balls in a row. Three of them.
Once Kurt said that it became
clear to all of the veterans we weren’t going anywhere with this guy as our coach.
At that point the media starts writing about the “problems” Kobe and I are having. A couple of guys suggested I was jealous that Kobe’s jersey was selling more than my jersey. Please. DFish came to my defense right away. He told them, “Man, all Shaq wants to do is win.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the
Lakers won a lot of games in the regular season, then got swept in the playoffs. It happened again in 1999. This time we got swept by the San Antonio Spurs, who went on to win the NBA championship.
The Spurs won because of Tim Duncan, a guy I could never break. I could talk trash to Patrick Ewing, get in David Robinson’s
face, get a rise out of Alonzo Mourning, but when I went at Tim he’d look
at me like he was bored and then say, “Hey, Shaq, watch this shot right here off the glass.”
You gotta love that. I used to say Duncan and I were like two mafia bosses. I was the loud East Coast boss, taking names, knocking heads. Tim was the laid-back, one-hundred-acre farm don. Nobody knows what he does, he’s the chill mafia guy, but we both know how to carry out a hit.
I was jealous of guys
like Duncan and Kevin Garnett, who got to do stuff like face up and shimmy. I could so some of that myself, but I was such a power player and the double teams came so quickly, in order for me to get mine I had to go with the boom-boom-bam move. Meanwhile Timmy and Kevin are out there dribbling, shooting off the glass, fading away.
Anyhow, after Duncan and the Spurs swept us out of the playoffs,
I was hurting really badly.
All that self-doubt that used to wear me out was coming back. What if I can’t win a championship? I was really beginning to wonder if I could. It just wasn’t happening. What was wrong with us?
Jerry Buss and Jerry West must have been wondering, too. They fired Kurt Rambis. When the media asked me what I thought the Lakers should do, I told them, “We need someone we
can respect, like a Phil Jackson.”
Hint hint.
Jerry West had the same idea. He told the owner the coaching carousel had to stop. We needed someone with some juice.
So they hired Phil, and right after the press conference they tell me, “He wants to meet with you.”
Phil didn’t mess around. He told me he expected big things from me. He told me there was absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t be
the MVP of the league. And then he went right into it: no more movies, no more rap records, no more parties.
“I know you’ve heard this before, and you’ve said, ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘Okay, sir.’ But you ignored it. This time you better not,” he said.
I told him he had my word. For one thing, the man’s résumé spoke for itself. For another, I was getting older and I wanted to win. I was so tired of people
talking about me not being a leader.
That summer I went to see Phil Jackson at his lake house. I was booked to do a benefit rap concert in Montana about twenty miles away, so I told him I was going to drop by.
Phil was at a doctor’s appointment with his daughter. When he got back I was jumping on his trampoline with all the neighborhood kids. But then I got hot, so I threw on my bathing suit
and started to do gainers off Phil’s dock into the lake.
Phil kept asking me, “Shouldn’t you be wearing a life vest?” Maybe he thought I couldn’t swim, because most white people think black people can’t swim. Not true, dawg. I’m an excellent swimmer.