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This is really not how Shaquille O’Neal wanted to go out. When he signed on for two years with the Boston Celtics last summer he was expecting to make the Celtics the third team he helped to win a championship. What he didn’t expect was to spend 45 games on the shelf due to injuries and then to make little more than a cameo appearance in the playoffs after the Celtics were already all but eliminated.

All in all, it was a tremendously disappointing season for one of the most dominant players to ever don an NBA jersey, and many speculated that it would be his last. Next season is, after all, a player option year for O’Neal, and there would be no shame in hanging them up due to ongoing injury issues. After all, Shaq has done it all in the NBA. He’s been the MVP, he’s won championships and he’s been the darling of the media, who can’t wait to repeat his every quip and retweet his every tweet. What does he have left to accomplish, really?

Well, anyone who’s been following O’Neal’s colorful career would have a hard time believing that he would be satisfied with last season’s effort. Everyone accepts that he’s an older player now, and none of the injuries came as a surprise, disappointing as they were. Still, Shaq has always had a flair for the dramatic and is very focused on his own image, and it’s unthinkable that he wouldn’t go ahead and exercise his option year and try one more time to go out as a champion.

Count his mother, Lucille O’Neal, among those who believe her son will be back in uniform next season.

“He went there to help them win a championship, and they didn’t do that this year," O’Neal told John Reid of the New Orleans Times Picayune. “It bothered him so much that he could not play. He felt like he let the Boston team down and the community down, so I could believe he’s going back to Boston. He’s not in a place to be traded or anything like that."

Shaq may be the oldest active player in the NBA at 39 years of age, but he still has that commitment to winning, that desire to be the best that has driven him throughout his NBA career. His mother believes his passion for the game could push him to try to win one more championship before he hands them up.

“I don’t know because Shaquille has got such passion for the game," said O’Neal. “(Retirement) we’ve always told him that’s up to him. Whatever decision he makes, we’re still going to be behind him 100 percent.”

It certainly remains to be seen whether or not the Celtics can win another championship with their current group, Shaq or no Shaq. Younger teams like Chicago and Miami have already surpassed them in the Eastern Conference pecking order, and more are on the rise. It’s possible that Shaq could lead them to one more title, but it doesn’t seem entirely likely. Still, last season was a huge disappointment for one of the proudest players in the game. It’s unlikely he will allow last season to be the final statement in his legacy.

Expect to see Shaquille O’Neal back in the NBA next season, whether he can still actually play or not.

Bad Blood Brewing In Dallas?

This year’s playoffs have been a little bit strange, particularly in the Western Conference. Specifically, as we head into Game 2 of the series between the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma City Thunder, we don’t really have an villains, and what’s a playoff series without a good villain?

The two teams that usually incite the most ire finished with the top two records in the conference, yet both the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers were dispatched with uncharacteristic ease long before the conference finals came around. So what’s an armchair sports fan to do? Neither Dirk Nowitzki nor Kevin Durant – the stars of their respective teams – have ever done anything to inspire the kind of hate that fills a sports fan’s heart with joy this time of year. Both are humble to a fault and personify everything you want your kids to love about professional sports. Parents in Dallas and OKC can’t buy those Nowitzki and Durant jerseys fast enough, and they couldn’t be any happier to tell their aspiring young athletes to look to their local NBA stars for how to behave on and off the court.

{AUTHOR_BOX}But who are we supposed to hate in this series? Who is supposed to get the fans fired up and booing? Isn’t that just as important as the actual wins and losses? At least in the Eastern Conference they have the ever-divisive LeBron James in Miami, which more than makes up for the humble and sportsmanship-endowed MVP hero of the Chicago Bulls. In the West? Well, apparently we’ll have to settle for a dust-up between starting centers.

Game 1 was exactly one minute and eleven seconds old when the first double-technical was called. Houston’s Tyson Chandler and OKC’s Kendrick Perkins had gotten tangled up under the basket and the refs decided to overreact . . .er . . .establish control early by quickly assessing techs.

“Me and Tyson never got along. I’m serious,” Perkins told NBA.com’s Sekou Smith of the incident. “He don’t like me, I don’t like him and that’s pretty much how it’s been. Everybody always looks at me as kind of like a dirty player if you’re on the opposite team, but he’s just as dirty as anybody else.”

Uh oh. Here we go! It’s on like Donkey Kong! (This is my new favorite phrase, thanks to HOOPSWORLD’s Joel Brigham, who re-introduced it in his preview of the Eastern Conference Finals.)

Only it’s not. As quickly as Perkins through out the first jab, Chandler dodged it as artfully as if it were just another Dwight Howard elbow flying towards his ear.

“He came at me and I think it was just a situation to keep the game under control they tech’d both of us up,” Chandler said. “But I’m not going to get into it with him. I’m not buying into all of the crap.”

Chandler didn’t even seem to know what Perkins was referring to in his comment that the two never got along.

“No, there’s no history at all,” Chandler said. “I have nothing against him. He won a championship with the Boston Celtics, and that’s where I’m trying to take my team. I mean, I’ve got respect for him, what he was able to accomplish. But all the chippy stuff, the after-the-ball stuff, that’s all nonsense and I’m not going to get involved with it.”

Respect for his opponent? Taking the higher ground? Kum-ba-yah, my lord, kum-ba-yah? Is this the playoffs or what??? Can’t we get a decent villain to step forward here?

“Honestly, my motive is not to get into it with Kendrick Perkins,” Chandler continued. “My motive is to make my team better when I’m on the floor and give my team an opportunity to win. My team is not going to be better with me off the floor, so there’s no reason for me to get into it with him. The only benefit that’s going to have is me off the floor and giving them a better chance to win, so I’m not getting into it with him."

OK, all joking aside, it’s refreshing to have two teams battling not only for a spot in the NBA Finals but also for a spot in the hearts and minds of NBA fans around the world. There were not villains coming into this series, no stupidity to detract from the high quality of basketball taking place on the court. The NBA is probably going to take a serious black eye this summer as an ugly labor war begins, but right now we have two of the classiest All-Stars to ever play the game battling it out on the court and then leaving it alone off the court.

Villains are fun, but I’ll take great basketball over reality-show-style pseudo-drama every time.

The score is Dirk Nowitzki 48, Kevin Durant 40. Dallas Mavericks 1, Oklahoma City Thunder 0.

Let the fun continue!

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NBA Chats: There are two chats on the schedule today. Up first is Stephen Brotherson, who covers the Toronto Raptors. His chat begins at 12 p.m. EST, you can get your questions into him here. Following him will be Lang Greene at 8:00 p.m. EST. Greene covers the Atlanta Hawks, you can drop your questions in here. As always you can also checkout our entire upcoming chat schedule here.