He now has a nipple ring to go with his title ring.
"I get bored," said Shaquille O'Neal, showing off his newest accessory.
That's the way it is when you have the world at your size 21 sneakers.
"Some cat dared me to get it," he said.
Even making these annual returns to the TD Waterhouse Centre as the villain are getting old. So just to break the boredom Sunday while toying with his former team, Shaq resorted to making half his free throws and talking trash to Magic reserve Michael Doleac.
Saying unkind things to Doleac, the mild-mannered, aspiring doctor, is like picking on Bambi. "I try and find my own way to get pumped up," Shaq said.
Shaq chartered a private plane after the Lakers' game Friday night in Washington, D.C. He couldn't wait to get back to Isleworth, his summer home, and see family and friends. The game was incidental, his opposition inconsequential. He knew he'd put his feet up all over Doleac, Andrew DeClercq and John Amaechi, the men who can pass for NBA centers most any other time.
When he's in town, they provide Isleworth's part-time resident with all the comforts of home, even the mint on the pillow.
He comically dwarfed all the Magic's big men. Shaq looks larger now than his listed 7-1, 315 pounds, and when he is backing his way to the basket, you expect to see flashing lights and hear loud beeps. Doleac, the well-muscled, 6-10 and 265-pounder, tried to draw an offensive foul against Shaq with a Vaudevillian flop to the floor.
It only drew Shaq's ire, touching off a diatribe of trash-talking from Shaq that Doleac answered with a fitting Magic response on the day: silence.
Actually, it was as good a strategy as any the Magic could have devised to stop The Big Aristotle in the Lakers' 95-90 win. He scored 33 points, hauled in 17 rebounds and even hit nine of 18 free throws.
The Magic still had chances to win, which says more about L.A. than Orlando. For all their talent, the Lakers still play dumb, disjointed and selfish at times. Look for the San Antonio Spurs to stop an L.A. repeat, which should really break the boredom for Shaq, if returning to Orlando no longer does. "I think now this is just another game," he said. "If the guys were still here I played with, then it would be more of a rivalry type thing."
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