Blame Shaq. Everyone's having a great time trying to figure out why the U.S. men's basketball team didn't win gold at the Olympics. I say: Point your finger at Diesel as he sips Cristal down in Miami and makes guest appearances at the VMAs. Why didn't the most dominating basketball player on the planet take a couple of months off to embarrass slick-cutting, gelled-hair, three-point-shooting Euros who strut down the court like it's a catwalk?
Tim Duncan? Yeah, he's a great player. MVP. Polite, great quotes, guaranteed 20 and 10. But he's too complacent. He doesn't intimidate, throw shoulders and elbows or break glass backboards like they're saltine crackers. He doesn't unintentionally frighten elderly grandparents in an alley late at night or rock a Superman Mercedes-Benz with a matching bicep tattoo. He's from the Virgin Islands, and he doesn't represent American basketball.
Shaq, on the other hand, undoubtedly gets my vote as scariest man on the planet with the most undefendable basketball skills. Not only does he sway the balance of power in the NBA, but he would do so in an international tournament as well. Chad Ford wouldn't have been out grandstanding about Argentina's prowess on the fast break if Shaq were dropping 40 points a game and scaring the children of the Olympic Committee members.
So far, people seem to have focused their blame on the nonchalant and lackadaisical attitudes of team members like Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury. Some have blamed Larry Brown's coaching techniques. (He did screw up royally by benching Carmelo and not letting LeBron run the offense.) Some clueless souls have absolved America of any responsibility by blaming the embarrassing losses on the fact that international basketball has "caught up" to the U.S. game.
This is all pure speculation. The truth of the matter, coming from a true fan who actually watched the games and was disheartened by the U.S. squad's decrepit performance, is that we didn't send our best basketball players to Greece. We didn't send T-Mac or Kobe, KG or J-Kidd, and most importantly, we didn't send the Diesel. Maybe they're the ones at fault. We should blame their selfish agents who won't let their players get injured during the summer in case they can't sign another $50 million contract. Maybe we should blame Kobe Bryant's accuser for dragging him to court all summer, keeping him off that other court where a suit and fake serious-face aren't required.
And we definitely can't leave out a share of blame for whoever didn't select Phil Jackson as the Olympic coach. The man won nine NBA championships during the 1990s, in three sets of three-peats. He holds almost every coaching record possible, including the best career winning percentage for both regular season games and the playoffs. And most importantly, the subject of this column, our beloved Shaq Daddy, told the world that he would only play for Coach Phil. That alone should have been enough reason to name Jackson the coach. Larry Brown is a great coach who gives incredibly monotone, scripted, impassionate interviews, but if having Phil Jackson leads to 84 inches and 340 pounds of Shaquille O'Neal and a gold medal, then the decision is a no-brainer.
But I digress. So if you're one of the 12 people who still watch professional basketball and you were personally hurt by the debacle this summer in Athens, cut this column out and mail it to the United States Olympic Basketball Selection Committee. And mail it to Shaq, too. Just make sure to "X" out my name with a Sharpie so he doesn't destroy me, since he is the scariest man on the planet.
Marc Lanza '06 owns all of Shaquille O'Neal's rap albums, has seen "Kazaam" 20 times and has all the same tattoos, or at least he says he does so that Shaq won't attack him.
