It was dreary night in New Jersey, which is something of a redundancy. A steady rain fell outside the squat, faceless hotel where the Orlando Magic was staying.
But that didn`t bother the several dozen people who had milled around for hours waiting for the Magic, or more precisely, its nascent star, Shaquille O`Neal, to board the team bus for the short ride to Meadowlands Arena.
”Shaq attack,” they shouted, straining to touch the luminescent man-child center. ”Shaq-a-doo,” they wailed. ”His Shaq-nificence!” Some thrust papers and cards for him to sign, and others just stared. Still others would be jumping into their cars to race the bus to the arena to catch still another glimpse of the 7-foot-1-inch, 300-pound Orlando center.
Magic coach Matt Guokas, a veteran player and coach who has been in the NBA during the reigns of Wilt Chamberlain (a teammate), Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, shook his head while delivering a wry smile.
”They follow the bus to the airplane just to get a glimpse,” said Guokas. ”It`s something I don`t understand. Like this reporter in L.A. He says: `There was Kareem, Wayne Gretzky and Babe Ruth. And now there`s Shaq. What about it coach?`
”Hey,” said Guokas, eyes widening, ”this kid has played 12 games. Kareem won something like six championships and Gretzy must have that MVP trophy named for him. And Babe Ruth?
”You can`t make comparisons,” said Guokas, ”But there`s more of a sense of excitement around the game when he plays.”
It`s pretty clear, about five weeks into the 1992-93 season, the NBA has unearthed another superstar to carry it into the next millennium.
Yes, that was a big sigh you heard from recently queasy NBA chieftans who were busy slapping the wrists of Michael Jordan for gambling, grimacing over the promiscuous and HIV-positive Magic Johnson and waving goodbye to the pain- wracked Larry Bird.
And advertisers-such as Reebok ($20 million worth over five years for a Shaq Attack line of shoes and clothes) and assorted others ($10 million for things such as. yes, a Shaq action figure)-waving hello. He has a seven-year, $40 million playing contract that will earn him more than Jordan will make from the Bulls over his entire career.
”He`ll be as big as Michael Jordan,” said Beth Schueler, a spokeswoman for Management Plus, rather matter of factly. ”But we`re working slowly. He`s not as big as Jordan now, but, yes, in terms of publicity, he is.”
And as heretical as that seems, it would be hard to deny.
The Magic`s rookie center is averaging 22 points and 15 rebounds, he played against premier centers Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon as the Magic split with New York and Houston and he was named player of the week the first week of the season.
”If I were a fan,” said O`Neal when asked about his suddenly monstrous popularity, ”I guess I`d like to see a 20-year-old kid run and dunk and dive on the floor.”
Oh sure, but it`s so much more than that.
Like that night in New Jersey. O`Neal has been besieged by fans and even celebrities-Chamberlain, who said he had been to two games in the last 10 years, came to see him last month, and Spike Lee has put in an interview request that as of yet is unfulfilled.
He went on the Arsenio Hall show and performed with a rap group known as Fu Schnickens. He wears a leather jacket with an ”S” logo like Superman`s. He wore mouse ears with ”Shaquille” on the back when he first arrived in Orlando.
”He has charisma,” Guokas said.
He`s playing to sellouts everywhere. He already has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the New York Times magazine. Almost 200 people waited outside while the team practiced in Los Angeles; security has been hired to escort him.
It was only previously experienced by Jordan and the Bulls.
At home, O`Neal mostly watches karate movies (”The ancient ones where the guys wear long robes and have real long hair,” he explains) and listens to music.
”Most of the time when I step out, people surround me,” he said casually, without comment.
And he admits he was angered most, so far, by a man who asked for an autograph for his sick brother and then sold it while O`Neal watched.
O`Neal has many of the same qualities, and burdens, as Jordan. He`s dutifully cooperative with the media and tries to be forthcoming. He searches out eye contact on every question. He smiles and offers self-deprecatory jokes.
”I did try to learn the skyhook once,” he said when asked about Abdul-Jabbar`s famous shot. ”I tried it in the park, but everyone was
laughing.”
He`s relentlessly generous, throwing a ”Shaqsgiving Day” for homeless people in Orlando, supplying dozens of tickets to poor kids for every Magic game and distributing toy-store gift certificates to children`s homes for Christmas.
”I can relate to kids better,” said O`Neal. ”I guess they`re more like me.”
But he`s no kid. O`Neal is a giant in a game of giants, the biggest among the big. While everyone admires the talented and deceptive little man, everyone fears and marvels at the big man.
”I`ve always imagined myself a few pounds heavier and a couple of inches taller,” said perennial All-Star center Hakeem Olajuwon, perhaps the best of the post-Abdul-Jabbar era. ”I think I saw what I`d look like (in O`Neal). He reminded me of a bigger me. He`s a dynamic player, a classic example of a big man, a very big man who`s quick and who you can`t move out of the way if he doesn`t want to move.”
And unlike the brooding giants of the past like Chamberlain, who uttered the famous ”Nobody likes Goliath,” Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and Patrick Ewing, this giant is more like a cross between Gulliver and the marshmallow man from ”Ghostbusters,” just a big kid trying to make friends but knocking everyone over along the way.
”It excites me, the things he does,” said Magic teammate Nick Anderson. ”The agility he has. I`ll be out there and sometimes, man, it`s like watching Jordan. He`s exciting and a great guy.”
O`Neal wasn`t always such a great guy.
His story, like Jordan`s tale of being cut from his high school team, has been capsulized as this big kid, the son of a nomadic and strict Army sergeant, spotted by LSU coach Dale Brown in Germany. Brown thought the kid was a soldier. When informed he was barely a teenager, Brown began the process that brought O`Neal to LSU All-American status and the NBA.
He was big and clumsy, about 6-8 as a high school sophomore, a kid who tried dancing to gain coordination just to win acceptance with friends. And he couldn`t dunk a basketball then, anyway.
He was called ”Sasquatch.” He would just punch someone in the face, boy or girl.
”I was kind of a juvenile delinquent,” recalled O`Neal. ”I`d follow the gangs. They`d call me something, I`d try to break their jaw. I had a bad temper. It took a while to make friends.”
O`Neal suffered the consequences from his father, but, he says, one day he just woke up and decided he wanted to be something.
”I was tired of the butt-whippins`,” he says. ”I decided I had to change.”
He became a born-again basketball gym rat and grew into the man to take over an era.
But the lessons continued. Through the Army travels, he had time to dominate high school basketball in San Antonio.
”I learned not to always believe what you read,” O`Neal said about his 35-0 team being upset in the state semifinals.
So don`t believe those comparisons with Chamberlain.
O`Neal is no Wilt Chamberlain.
Remember, Chamberlain averaged 37 points and 26 rebounds as a rookie. O`Neal doesn`t dominate like that. And he never will.
After his quick start, during which he averaged 26 points and 17 rebounds the first few weeks of the season, O`Neal has averaged nearly 19 points and about 12.6 rebounds the last six games for the 8-9 Magic.
O`Neal, accustomed to zone defenses that denied him the ball in college and quickly double-teamed as a pro, finds his offense coming slowly.
”I thought I might have to score 60 one night and then get 50 rebounds before they`d double team me. But they`re coming right away,” he lamented.
And O`Neal hasn`t been able to answer because of a limited offensive repertoire: no spin move from the low post or hook, effectively little response when he`s forced away from the basket.
”He doesn`t have a real game down there (post) yet, other than he can just overpower you,” said Guokas. ”Sometimes he`ll try to finesse, which is not wise. He has a spin. But one time he`ll dunk, then he`ll rush it because he doesn`t realize he has position.”
He also has had trouble passing out of double teams and Magic guard Scott Skiles said they have had to simplify their offense to accommodate O`Neal`s limited offensive knowledge.
But no one is too concerned, least of all O`Neal.
”I`ve practiced the jump hook,” he said, ”and that will probably be my shot.
”But I`ll be all right,” O`Neal said. ”I`m thankful and I`m lucky. I know I want to win a championship, and I know there will be tough times. I`m human, and I`m going to make mistakes. But, for now, I`m living one day at a time. And I`m just 20.”
