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Meaner and leaner Shaq ready to do battle 09.27.10 at 11:04 pm ET
By

WALTHAM — Shaquille O’Neal is a superstar who loves to talk about having 735 days left in his NBA career. He wants those days to include two more NBA titles, giving him six, which would mean he would have one more than Kobe Bryant.

But as O’Neal reminded everyone on Monday at Celtics media, this isn’t about him and Kobe, it’s about leaving the game on top.

The newest superstar member of the Celtics has given up his mom’s hamburgers, fried chicken, mac and cheese and cornbread muffins and is ripped and ready to go for his 18th season in the NBA, starting with Celtics media day on Monday.

O’Neal said he has been playing pickup games with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce at the Celtics facility and swimming to get in shape.

The Shaq-Kobe war of words was re-ignited Monday when he recalled the words of Bryant in the moments after the Lakers beat the Celtics for their 17th title and his fifth. ‘That’s one more than Shaq.’

O’Neal had his response on Monday. It had less to do with Kobe and more to do with San Antonio’s Tim Duncan.

“Yeah I heard it,” O’Neal said. “My whole career I’ve been the measuring stick. Glad to see I’m still relevant. I would’ve been more upset, more hurt, if Tim Duncan would’ve made the comment. I don’t compete with guards. They have the ball more than I do, they shoot way more than I do. You can’t compete with guard. I’m only competing w/Tim Duncan so hopefully I can get No. 5 before Tim Duncan, respectfully before Tim Duncan.”

Duncan and O’Neal each have four NBA championship rings while Bryant and Derek Fisher lead active players with five.

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  • ak

    this is guy is so dumb. Wasn’t he the one who said Kobe can’t one without him. If this statement in his mind is not competing with kobe then he should tell us what it is. Now that Kobe calls out to him he’s backing off, cos he sees now that he’s the loser and can’t compete with kobe

  • http://webuyallthings@att.net RENE MENDOZA

    BACK2BACK WITHOUT SHAG & GOING BACK TO GET ANOTHER ONE WITHOUT SHAG MAKING IT 3 IN A ROW WITHOUT SHAG.

  • Statsjockey

    Shaq was great when he was with the Magic and even more so with the Lakers. However, he’s now just a side show looking for validation, which is quite sad. Although Shaq is a big body that will help on rebounding for the Celts, he will ultimately do more harm than good because he can’t defend against the pick-and-roll and he can’t shoot free throws. The Celts live and die on team defense, and you can’t have Shaq in a game when it counts because the defense will break down. In the post, Shaq still has moves that lead to mismatches, but the Celts still won’t be able to use him when it counts because all you have to do is foul him to neutralize his effectiveness. So Shaq will be used mainly as a second/third quarter option to foul other post players and try to tire them out, which isn’t a very honorable use for someone that will go to the Hall of Fame.

  • http://www.70sfancydressideas.co.uk Chelsea King

    You can not believe how long ive been googling for something like this. Through 5 pages of Yahoo results and couldnt find anything. Quick search on bing. There you are!…. Gotta start using that more often

  • http://www.squidoo.com/workshop/seo-consulting-building-traffic-to-become-an-online-power-seller-for-financial-supremacy Marcella Atienza

    Darn I would like that they would get their junk sorted over so I personally recognized there was in fact gonna end up being footballing this specific season. There will certainly be a few serious situations regarding drawback without.

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