Shaq autobiography has landed

[RyGuy45]

Boy....with Tebow, Kris Humphries, and now this ESPN has got their 24-hour content for the rest of the week....

In New Book, Shaq Explains How Kobe's Sexual Assault Chargers Destroyed the Lakers

Deadspin.com

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 coaching 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 "#+@% you!" and I'm yelling back, "No, #+@% 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?"


On Halle Berry:

I remember being in the dorm room one night and we were watching the movie Jungle Fever with Halle Berry in it, and I thought she was so stunning, so I wrote her a letter. I was just kind of kidding around, telling her I was a big fan and I'd love to meet her sometime. The guys totally goofed on me for doing it, but I didn't care. A few weeks later, no lie, Halle Berry wrote me back. She sent me a signed picture that I still have hanging in my office. Turns out she's a basketball fan. She wrote, "I'm a big fan of yours, too. I can't wait until you get to the NBA."


On retired life:

"They've already got some things cooking in Hollywood for me. Adam Sandler called me in June 2011 and said, "I want you to be in some of my movies."

I've stayed fairly low-key about what I own. For instance, out of the fifteen twenty-four-hour fitness places I own, only three have my name on it. None of the Five Guys I own have my name on it. None of the clubs I own in Vegas, either.


You can pre-order Shaq Uncut: My Story, which comes out from Grand Central Publishing on November 15, here.

 

[pmatic]

Not surprised by any of the Kobe stuff (well maybe the Will Smith line

).

 

[blazers21ntnp]

I'll probably be skipping this.

 

[hankmoody]

Jackie Macmullan has carved out for herself a nice niche as a puppet.

 

[big j 33]

at the Will Smith comment

 

[maxelite]

How is this not a must read?

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

The Kobe stories are

 

[DCAllAfrican]

Been waiting for this. I thought he was going to say he "hit" Halle.

 

[crazy dav0]

Originally Posted by MaxElite

How is this not a must read?

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Originally Posted by RyGuy45

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 "#+@% you!" and I'm yelling back, "No, #+@% 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?"



Ducktales. Zo tore his ACL in December of 07. No way he would be that involved in practice yet

 

 

[dade b0y]

It's not ducktales. That altercation with Riley happened a few weeks prior to Zo's injury.

 

[you big dummy]

Originally Posted by DCAllAmerican

Been waiting for this. I thought he was going to say he "hit" Halle.

this

this book is a must read

 

[gangsta207therevolution]

We know why Brian Shaw isnt the coach, although he was correct in everything he said.

 

[thejrob]

I actually believe the Kobe part although I'm sure Shaq contributed to the nonsense a little more than he is implying.

Either way, the stuff Kobe said as a rookie, that's why he's made it to this point: Kobe don't joke around

 

[MIKE LOWERY]

Will be reading.

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Originally Posted by Dade B0Y

It's not ducktales. That altercation with Riley happened a few weeks prior to Zo's injury.

Well Zo got hurt on December 17th 2007. In that excerpt Shaq said that this altercation happened in mid February 2008

  

 

[hugebird]

Shaq Twain.

I'll get my fiction from the classics, thank you very much.

 

[laker4lifeman]

Yeah Shaq is going to exaggerate some of these stories.

 

[megatron]

YESSSSS
i hope its like 2000 pages or something

 

[CP1708]

I read it like 9 times, I don't get the Will Smith line. 

 

Will Smith?  Really?  Does he mean Fresh Prince or something when Carlton got all mad? 

 

[hood17]

Im getting this book

Man I can't wait for this damn lockout to be over I wanna see how he's gonna destroy everyone on Inside the NBA w/ Chuck

 

[r23j]

"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. ..."

Uhh... what?  I hope dude writes better then this... This will spark some stuff, but its 7 years ago.

 

[moneymike9]

 at the Kobe stuff, but most of this is something we already knew...except maybe the Will Smith line 

 

[westcoastsfinest]

Will Smith of the NBA? Maybe because of their Philly roots.

 

[lawdog1]

The Will Smith comment wouldn't have really made sense in 1996, since Smith wasn't a box office superstar yet at that point, but it makes sense now. I think what Shaq is implying is that Kobe had it calculated out how he was going to get to the top of his profession. What he needed to do and how he needed to do it. Kind of like how Will Smith had a plan what to do to be in mega-grossing movies. The reason for the analogy is a little hard to articulate, but I see it.