Stan Van Gundy criticized Shaquille O’Neal’s attempted flop against Dwight Howard Tuesday night.
O’Neal was guarding Howard with about 4 minutes left in the third quarter Tuesday night. Howard made a spin move, O’Neal fell to the court in an effort to get an offensive foul called, and the Magic center easily dunked with two hands.
Afterward, Van Gundy said he was “shocked, seriously. I was shocked and very disappointed because he knows what it’s like. You know, let’s stand up and play like men, and I think our guy did that.”
“One thing I really despise is a frontrunner,” O’Neal said before the Suns played the Heat, Shaq’s first time back in Miami since last season’s trade. “I know for a fact he’s a master of panic and when it gets time for his team to go into the postseason and do certain things, he will let them down because of his panic. I’ve been there before. I’ve played for him.”
“Flopping is playing like that your whole career,” O’Neal said. “I was trying to take a charge, trying to get a call. Yeah, it probably was a flop, but flopping is wrong. Flopping would describe his coaching.”
“I’m not going to sit around and let nobodies take shots at me,” O’Neal said. “He is a nobody to me. If he thinks he can get a little press conference and take shots at me like I’m not take one back, he has another thing coming. … I tried to take a charge. The rules say when a guy comes into your chest and you fall, it’s an offensive foul. That’s all I tried to do. I fell. I didn’t complain.”
Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski had an interesting take on why Van Gundy would choose to enter a war of words with probably the most quotable player in NBA history.
“He definitely knew that Shaq doesn’t care for him,” said a coach who has worked with Van Gundy. “He also knows that Shaq does this to every coach he’s ever played for. At least Shaq did it out in the open this time and not behind Stan’s back. That’s what he did when he played in Miami for him.
“I mean, Shaq ripped Pat Riley and Phil Jackson after he was done playing for them. That’s what he does.”
As Van Gundy volunteered his critique of Shaq’s flopping after the Magic’s victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, the source of his motivation wasn’t his old Miami Heat center. It was Dwight Howard, his guy.
Van Gundy had listened to Shaq’s relentless ripping of his young center, and decided to make himself the easy target for O’Neal. He’d take the hit. Shaq has been obsessed with Howard. He hates that Howard’s a young center in the city where O’Neal started out in the league, and hates that Howard wears a Superman cape, and hates that, well, Howard’s the next big thing.
So, yes, O’Neal’s been cruel in his dismissals of Howard. Perhaps Van Gundy started to see that it wore on Howard, that it had gone beyond comical to uncomfortable. Howard’s a nice kid and he won’t fight back.
It’s funny how ego gets involved so quickly. Van Gundy calls Shaq out for flopping after complaining about it his entire career and Shaq quickly goes on the offensive, calling Van Gundy a “frontrunner,” a “master of panic” and a “nobody.” Shaq is probably not feeling too great about having to flop to stop Howard. Faced with his own basketball mortality, he reacts the only way he knows how — by tearing down his critics.
