One of the most underrated TV shows of the past two years has been an NBA production called “The Association”, which chronicles the season from start to finish of one NBA team. Last year, it was the Los Angeles Lakers; this year, it’s the Boston Celtics.
Beginning with training camp, viewers get an all access look at the Celtics as they try to get back to the NBA Finals and win another banner.
But this is the ultimate reality show. Exclusive interviews with players who are sharing their back stories, workout habits and feelings on the team’s performance. For a team that includes NBA stars like Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Shaquille O’Neal and coach Doc Rivers, it’s truly been must see TV for any basketball fan.
From chronicling Shaquille O’Neal’s re-injury less than five minutes into his comeback against the Detroit Pistons on April 3, to the urgency of the Big Three, it was some of the most compelling scenes of stuff that happens in and around a sport.
The final episode, which aired last week, was jarring to any fan between the ages of 25 and 40.
It was perhaps more reality than I wanted to deal with. It was a window into the reality of what time does to the body, specifically with O’Neal.
At one time, Shaquille O’Neal was one of the most amazing athletes I’d ever seen. From the moment I saw his “Don’t fake the funk on a nasty dunk” commercial as a rookie with the Orlando Magic, both O’Neal’s personality and athleticism were uncontrollable. He really seemed like Superman.
Just take a look at his stats page: http://www.nba.com/playerfile/shaquille_oneal/career_stats.html
Tell me what you see? I know what I see…memories of my teenage years, watching O’Neal shatter backboards and abuse opposing centers with an absolute force.
For a few years, he was an unstoppable machine in the post. It’s why the Lakers won three rings with him, why he won another with the Heat and made a Finals appearance with the Magic in 1995.
Shaq’s best season had to be 1999-2000. Leading the Lakers to the title, his first, Shaq averaged 29.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.0 blocks per game, while shooting nearly 58 percent from the field. Those are simply crazy stats over an 82 game season.
Years from now, we’ll see highlights and briefly remember Shaq that way – an agile 7-footer with so much speed, size and raw force he couldn’t be contained. But time has already altered our memories of him. My 9-year-old son thinks he’s an old, injury-plagued back-up who looks out of shape.
In reality, both are true.
As with most NBA centers and really all players, years of playing 82-plus games a year is not kind on the body. During “The Association: Boston Celtics” finale last week, he admitted as much, saying that getting old was hard because you don’t recover from a tweaked ankle or hamstring like you used to. Shaq alluded to some 39-year-old guy watching right now in his office thinking the same thing.
And he’s right. I’m only in my early 30s, but I’ve already noticed it. Old injuries flare up, new ones emerge. I could hurt my back bending over to tie a shoe and the pain is debilitating.
As fans, when that reality hits us, it changes our perspective on how we view players and teams each year. A Laker fan, I used to despise the Spurs and Celtics. Now, I’m slightly torn and somehow want to see them hang on for a little bit longer, but I know they won’t.
Go back and look at Shaq’s stats again. Notice the games played category? He’s never played a full 82-game season. Since 2004-05, O’Neal has only played in more than 61 games once – with Phoenix in 2008-09, when he played 75.
It just takes longer to recover. It’s a young man’s game and we’re witnessing a changing of the guard.
The question is, what happens to the old men who were once young men?
A 22-year-old (Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls) will be named NBA MVP today. The young Memphis Grizzlies beat the fundamental Spurs in six games in the first round. Other youthful teams, like the Bulls, Heat, Hawks and Thunder are all still alive. The Grizzlies were the Western Conference’s 8-seed, the Spurs were the best NBA team in the regular season. It’s only the second time that kind of upset has occurred in a seven game series.
But the regular season is a veteran’s playground – dealing with the rigors of the road, the bumps and bruises. The regular season encourages sustained excellence and mental toughness.
The playoffs, however, are about much more: how much farther, harder and faster can you push yourself after a five month season? For guys like Shaq, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and so many more, it’s a challenge just to get to the playoffs in one piece. Often they don’t. Kobe’s dealt with a litany of minor injuries the past few years, Garnett missed much of the playoffs in 2009. Duncan just can’t keep up with guys like Zach Randolph every other night for 10 days straight.
We haven’t had a changing of the guard quite like this in the NBA, not since the early 1990s, when Jordan’s Bulls began usurping the Pistons, Lakers and Celtics.
Blake Griffin’s raw skills, along with Howard’s, are breathtaking until you realize that you have seen something similar before. I saw it in Kobe, KG, Shaq…they did it too.
Back then, I was all for seeing guys like Jordan pass Isiah, Magic and Bird. I loved seeing Kobe going toe-to-toe with Michael in ’97 and ’98 – young guns taking over from the old men who should just get out of the game before the embarrass themselves.
And then I hit 30. Now I know there’s more to it than that. It’s not so easy to give up something you love so much, something you’ve poured all your energy into. Even though your body tells you it’s closing time, your mind and heart tell you that you’ve been there before and can do it again.
Maybe that’s why Garnett slaps himself in the head, head-butts the goalpost, and bounces around like a pool of sweat. Maybe it’s why Kobe and Ray Allen shoot hundreds of jumpers – three hours before a playoff game. It’s why Jordan dragged his flu-ridden body around the court in Utah during the legendary Finals and why Willis Reed limped back out in ’70. It’s why Charles Barkley had to literally blow out his knee to the point he couldn’t walk before he could literally walk away.
“It can’t be over – I’m not ready for it to be over. I can still do it.”
The same heart of a champion we credit for greatness is the same childlike stubbornness that makes them push on and on in later years.
And that’s what I thought of when I saw Shaq limping down a dark corridor to the Celtics locker room. Head down, a look on his face that was both pained and blank – like he expected it to happen. Juxtaposed with that was young Celtics All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo back on the floor during the game, cutting and stopping on a dime, breaking ankles and displaying a fifth gear of speed. You have to laugh a little bit then at how excited we get when Kobe dunks on a second-rate center like Emeka Okafor in the Lakers first round match-up with the Hornets. Or when he really turns it up for the All-Star game to prove he still belongs. We know it’s still there, so does he. It just doesn’t come out every day to play.
One day Rondo will be Shaq. One day the torch will be passed unwillingly from one generation to the next. One day we’ll forget how good he was.
They don’t go because they want to. They go because they are made to.
It’s a young man’s game – and youth is fleeting.
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