Shaq Retires

Celtics center Shaquille O’Neal has always been close with his fans, which is why he didn’t wait for some publicists to digest his decision and regurgitate it to the media on Wednesday. For those who haven’t heard, Shaq posted a very brief video on Tout.com and made a few statements on his Twitter account to declare that he’s retiring from basketball after 19 years in the league.

“Well we did it,” Shaq said on the video. “Nineteen years baby. I want to thank you very much, that’s why I’m telling you first, I’m about to retire. Love you, talk to you soon.”

And just like that, a pro basketball career that has spanned six teams, three presidencies and 1,207 total regular season games has ended.

There will be an official press conference on Friday where O’Neal will explain his decision. He had been battling an Achilles injury, and even though he had multiple cortisone shots to relieve the pain, O’Neal played only 12 minutes in the Celtics’ Eastern Conference Semifinals loss to the HEAT. He does have one year left on his contract, but it appears O’Neal would rather save the Celtics some money than trying to play next season.

In spite of his age and injuries, O’Neal was actually pretty productive for the Celtics over 37 regular season games. He finished the year averaging a career-low 9.2 PPG and 4.8 RPG, but he did make 66.7% of his field goals, which helped him to finish with a Player Efficiency Rating of 17.44 (13th among centers).

In honor of one of the greatest NBA careers in history, here’s a quick rundown of where Shaq stands among the all-time leaders (all rankings include both NBA and ABA statistics. The statistics were provided by basketballreference.com):

Shaq will always be remembered for his size (listed at 7-1, 325 at the end of his career), but he moved remarkably well for his build. Simply dismissing him as being “too big to guard” doesn’t really do him any justice. The NBA has had other giants—Priest Lauderdale was 7-4, 325 for crying out loud—but none of them had the deft touch or savvy passing skills of O’Neal. And even though he may have seemed like a bit of a clown in his commercials, rap videos, movies and television shows, he also took the game extremely seriously. Not only did O’Neal win four titles, he played on competitive teams for the final 18 of his 19 NBA seasons.

So where does O’Neal rank among the greatest NBA centers (or just players in general) of all time? Give us your take in the comment section below.

Triano Gets the Hook

The Toronto Raptors have announced that they have declined head coach Jay Triano’s option, but he will stay with the franchise as a special assistant.

“I have great respect for Jay Triano both as a person and as a basketball mind,” Raptors president and GM Bryan Colangelo said in an official statement. “Jay deserves tremendous credit for developing our young players this past season and our most recent win-loss record does not appropriately reflect his many positive contributions to this organization.

“This was a difficult decision to make, but after almost three full seasons of observation and evaluation I believe that bringing in a new voice as head coach will accelerate the progress we are looking to make in the coming years.

“I am very pleased that Jay has agreed to stay on and help see through the plan that we have designed and initiated together.”

Triano, a native of Ontario, was 87-142 during his three seasons with the Raptors.

“I am grateful to the organization for the opportunity to be a head coach in the NBA,” said Triano. “I am proud of the work that I and the coaching staff have done with our young players and feel confident we have laid the foundation for a team that will continue to improve. I look forward in assisting Bryan to deliver a championship team to Toronto.”

Chandler: Time To Get Aggressive

The epilogue to Tuesday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals has gone something like this: The Mavericks aren’t concerned about Dirk Nowitzki’s strained finger on his non-shooting hand. They’re not worried about the shots they missed down the stretch. What Dallas is concerned about is that they didn’t match Miami’s intensity in Game 1.

Mavericks center Tyson Chandler echoed that sentiment at Wednesday’s shootaround.

“We got to get more aggressive,” he told reporters. “We watched tape and we weren’t aggressive enough. That’s just plain and simple. We got lured into their pace and then they were able to turn it up and make shots at the end of the game and we weren’t. Normally at the time that we capitalize, we just didn’t make shots.

“We had our opportunities to win the game—we didn’t—but that’s one game that they won and now we have to go after Game 2,” he continued. “We got the looks that we normally get. We just didn’t capitalize on them. You can call that whatever, but I fully expect us to make those same shots from here on out.”

And Chandler isn’t excluding himself from his own critique. The veteran scored just nine points and grabbed four rebounds in 34 foul-plagued minutes.

“I got to make more of an impact on the game though,” he said. “Four rebounds is not acceptable for myself. There’s so many opportunities, but they did a good job… They rebound with five guys and that’s what we got to do.

“I’m going to be more aggressive in Game 2—get myself more involved in the game. I feel like guys are definitely looking for me. For whatever reason, we never quite got into the flow offensively last night.”

Even the Mavericks bench, which was supposed to be one of the team’s strengths this series, was outplayed by HEAT reserves like Mario Chalmers and Udonis Haslem, who combined for 19 points, seven rebounds and two steals. Besides Jason Terry, who went three of 10 from the field and finished with 12 points, Dallas’ backups combined to make just one field goal.

“We got to be just as aggressive with them as we are with their starting lineup,” Chandler said of Miami’s backups. “They came in and did a lot of dirty work, between [Haslem] and Chalmers coming in and keeping them in the game in the first half with those threes, I thought it made a huge impact and we definitely got to take that away.”

Game 2 tips off Thursday night at 9 p.m.

{AUTHOR_BOX}McHale Won’t Change Houston’s Offense?

Kevin McHale may be replacing Rick Adelman in Houston (he plans on signing Friday), but during Wednesday’s NBA TV conference call with fellow analyst Chris Webber, the former Celtics legend said he plans on keeping much of the outgoing Rockets coach’s offense.

“It would be silly for me to go up there and not do a lot of the stuff Rick Adelman did on the offensive end,” McHale said. “Chris (Webber) played for coach Adelman. He knows what a good coach he is.

“Chris and I talk about it all the time in the studio, how much we like that offense, how much we like the different things that coach Adelman has brought to the game,” McHale continued.

The Rockets ranked sixth in the NBA in offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions), but were 18th in defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions).

McHale also addressed the topic of his future coaching staff, but since he has yet to officially sign, any announcement regarding his assistants might take some time.

“I haven’t signed there yet, so it’s kind of hard to have a staff in place,” he said. “I’m actually going to sign on Friday, so then I said I’m really going to get moving. I’ve talked to a few people. You sit down with some of the people who are currently in Houston and talk to them a little bit… and just kind of get a feel for everything. I don’t think there’s any huge rush in getting that done Friday afternoon, but I want to have that in place here as soon as possible so we can just start, hey, breaking down some film and going over what’s going to work.”

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