Shaquille O’Neal looks back at his retirement; Bemoans injury issues – NBA Update
Shaquille O’Neal has revealed in a recent interview how he knew it was time to hang up his boots. The legendary centre also bemoaned injuries that he thought wrecked his last season with the Boston Celtics.
O’Neal said that he was fed up with being a bit part player. ‘The Diesel’ was a dominant force in NBA basketball for most of his 19 year NBA career. He collected 4 NBA World Championships during his career that also included 3
NBA Finals MVP awards.
Therefore it was hard for such a tremendous player not to be a spearhead of his side and instead become a liability as age and injuries slowed him down to a snail’s pace.
“I’m so used to playing at a high level, and I hated reading articles of me playing at a regular level. When you get a certain age, a lot of people really don’t know what you can do.” Commented the NBA icon, in an interview with
John Reid, The Times Picayune reporter, after the unveiling of his 900 pound statue at LSU. “I just had to play a role, and I wasn’t comfortable with that.”
Shaquille retired from the game for good once the season was over. He had hoped to have had another go at the NBA title with the Boston Celtics but it wasn’t to be. The Celtics were dumped out of the playoffs by the Miami Heat
in the 2nd round.
Miami had a core of super star players in their prime with LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. The Celtics on the other hand had aging legs and the roster was weakened by the trade of Kendrick Perkins and injury to Shaq.
“Superman” was adamant that had he not been injured Miami would not have progressed past Boston. However his body just couldn’t take it anymore, no matter how hard he tried and in the end he knew his time on the basketball court was up.
“I truly believe that if I didn’t get injured, we (Celtics) would have beaten Miami, and we could have beaten Dallas. Usually when it’s really a bad injury, you get one (cortisone) shot, and then you feel better and play. But I
got shot after shot, and I was scared to get an MRI. I knew my Achilles’ tendon was ripped the whole time. I did everything from acupuncture, cortisone and therapy.”
Shaq returned during the payoff series against the Heat but it was a forced return. The player was visibly not a hundred percent and reduced to a non entity in the series as he failed to make any impact. The Heat therefore dominated
the Celtics, who also had injury issues with star point guard Rajon Rondo.
Shaq subsequently announced an expected retirement from basketball.
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