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Apparently, Shaq left Louisiana State University early in order to pursue a career in basketball.  The 7’1″ hoop star, who is currently an analyst on the TV program “Inside the NBA,” was drafted by the Orlando Magic as the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft.  Despite his windfall, Shaq made a vow to his mother, Lucille Harrison, and stepfather, Dale Brown, that he would obtain his undergraduate degree, a promise he did fulfill all while playing ball professionally.

Shaq completed his degree by attending summer school during the basketball off-season as well as through an independent studies program. “The Big Aristotle” then went on to get a Master’s degree online in 2005 from the University of Phoenix and is the only current NBA player with an MBA (Master of Business Administration).

As the recipient of numerous accolades during his 19-year playing career, his latest educational accomplishment is one of his proudest moments but getting back into the swing of school wasn’t easy.  Shaq told ABC News, “The hardest part was getting back into high school mode. You ever have that high school teacher that says, you’ve got to read six chapters over the weekend?”

Athletes and their diplomas are oftentimes seen as antidotes to statistics nationwide, indicating that players in men’s basketball and football graduate at rates significantly lower than the general student body.  So Shaq’s latest accomplishment is undoubtedly quite a notch in his suspenders.

What exactly does Dr. O’Neal plan on doing with his educational credentials a year after his retirement from the NBA?  Motivational speaking, of course!  He also wants to go to law school.

So how does Shaq want to be addressed from now on?  Well, he wants to make sure that no one gets it twisted!  “Only the children can call me Shaq, the adults have to address me as Dr. O’Neal,” he said.

Does Dr. O’Neal miss his stellar NBA career? “No,” Shaq says, “because I got a new walk, a doctor’s walk.”

O’Neal claims that Obama made fun of his shooting ability during a fund raiser where they met the President in his book  “Shaq UnCut.”

The Huffington Post reports:

The President turns to Ray, points at Rondo, and says, “Hey, Ray, why don’t you teach this kid how to shoot?” Everyone starts laughing.

KG told me he saw the look on Rondo’s face and the kid was devastated, embarrassed. Dissed by the President, even though I’m sure Obama didn’t mean any harm. Rondo smiled and went along with all of it, but KG told me he could see it in his eyes. It bothered Rondo. It killed him.

Shaq went on to write that Rondo “shot the ball horribly” the next day and he “stopped taking shots after that.”

Read More At The Huffington Post

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In Ross’ court transcripts, he claims that the kidnappers beat him and wanted the videotape that he supposedly had. The seven gang members associated with this are being accused of kidnapping, robbery, assault and conspiracy against Ross.

Both O’Neal and his business partner Mark Stevens have been charged or named in a criminal complaint.  They have denied any involvement in any of this.

Read More At ESPN

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Shaq Involved In Kidnapping, Robbery And Sex Tape Case

“It was a bluff. There was no tape. There never was a tape,” said a source.

Music producer Robert Ross originally claimed that O’Neal hired the Main Street Mafia Crips in 2008 to retrieve a tape of the basketball star cheating on his then wife, Shaunie O’Neal.

Ross said at the hearing that while he had security cameras in his house on occasions when Shaq visited, he never actually downloaded any compromising footage.

Police interviewed O’Neal but did not turn up any evidence he ordered or even knew about Ross’s shakedown, sources said.

In another interesting twist, Ross said he had an affair with O’Neal’s wife before the kidnapping and that the hoopster hired a private investigator to tail them.

The producer claims that O’Neal hired the Main Street Mafia Crips to retrieve a tape of the basketball star cheating on his then wife, Shaunie O’Neal.

Promoter Robert Ross says that he threatened to release the tape after a dispute between the two.

Seven members of the vicious Main Street Mafia Crips have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, assault and other crimes.

The hardened street thugs allegedly abducted one-time O’Neal associate Robert Ross in his Phantom Rolls Royce on the night of the 2008 Grammy Awards — then beat and pistol-whipped him while demanding the sex tape back, according to Ross’ testimony.

Read more at NYPost.com

“We don’t have any specific timetable on this, but you can be assured we will retire Shaq’s jersey,” said Lakers spokesman John Black in an email on Wednesday.

O’Neal, 39, revealed his retirement early Wednesday on Twitter.
VIDEO:

O’Neal wore No. 32 in Orlando to start his career, but had to change to No. 34 when arriving in L.A. because of Johnson. He went back to No. 32 in Miami and Phoenix. He also wore No. 33 in Cleveland and No. 36 in Boston to finish his career.
Read more at ESPN.com

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Farewell! Shaq Announces His Retirement From Basketball

Shaq Agrees To Deal With Boston Celtics [REPORT] | News One

An inveterate prankster who gave himself a new nickname – or several – in each of his six NBA cities, the 15-time All-Star did not notify his latest team of his plans. He played just 37 games this year, the first of a two-year deal at the veteran’s minimum salary, making just three brief appearances after Feb. 1.

“To my knowledge, he has not informed any of us that he’s retiring,” Celtics spokesman Jeff Twiss said.

If he goes, O’Neal retires fifth all-time with 28,596 points, 12th with 13,099 rebounds and second only to Artis Gilmore among players with more than 2,000 baskets with a .582 field goal percentage.

O’Neal’s contributions to basketball went far beyond his presence on the court.

One of the most charismatic players in NBA history, O’Neal was a franchise-saver when the Orlando Magic made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 draft. He took them from the lottery to the playoffs in two years, and then led them to the NBA finals in his third year before they were swept by the Houston Rockets.

O’Neal, 39, signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996 and had his greatest success there, winning three titles alongside Kobe Bryant and coach Phil Jackson. But amid tension between O’Neal and Bryant over credit for the team’s success, O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in the summer of 2004, fresh off a loss to the Detroit Pistons in the finals.

After 3 1/2 years in Miami, a tenure that included his fourth NBA championship, O’Neal became a veteran-for-hire, moving to Phoenix and then Cleveland and finally Boston. But he couldn’t deliver another title for Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire with the Suns, with LeBron James with the Cavaliers or with the Celtics’ Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

At each stop, he endeared himself to the fans and his new teammates with his effervescent smile and playful attitude, including the habit of adopting a new nickname that he felt embodied his role with his new team. In Phoenix he was the “Big Shaqtus”; in Boston, the “Big Shamroq.”

He also embraced social networking, amassing almost 4 million followers on his Twitter account, where fans could find out his next move or even the “random acts of Shaqness” – like sitting in Harvard Square, pretending to be a statue, or going out in drag on Halloween.

But O’Neal’s off-court persona couldn’t disguise the fact that he was getting old, and while he showed he could still play with younger opponents he couldn’t manage to stay on the court with them. He missed a week in November with a bruised right knee, a week in December with a calf injury and another in January with a sore right hip.

He returned for three games – a total of about 34 minutes – before missing the next 27 games with what the team called a sore right leg. Although the injury was originally expected to keep him out just a few games, his absence stretched to more than two months.

He returned to play in one more regular-season game but lasted just 5 minutes, 29 seconds before reinjuring the leg and limping off the court. He missed Boston’s entire first-round series against the New York Knicks and made two appearances against Miami, a total of 12 minutes, and scored two points.

In all, O’Neal averaged just 9.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 20.3 minutes this season while playing in 37 games – all career lows.

O’Neal fouled out in only 13 minutes of playing time and sounded off after the game.

“I guess they came out to see No. 26 today,” O’Neal said, referring to official No. 26, Bob Delaney. “… He was a great player out there today.

Read entire article at ESPN.com

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Shaquille O’Neal Sued for Computer Hacking, Destruction of Evidence

Shaquille O’Neal is being sued in Dade County, Florida, by a former employee of his, Shawn Darling.

This type of thing (people suing rich, famous people) happens every single day. But the details of Shaq’s lawsuit aren’t your average, every day civil complaint from an ex-employee.

Radar Online reports that Darling is suing Shaq for some pretty heavy stuff: computer hacking and destruction of evidence. (A PDF of the public document is here.)

Darling claims that he worked for O’Neal — and O’Neal’s wife, Shaunie, as well as his “associates” and children as well — from late 2007 until November 2009, and that during that time, Shaq had him “wipe” Shaq’s computers and delete the information in his “AOL” account in relation to other legal issues.

Read more AOL Fanhouse

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Shaq’s Plan: 6 teams, 6 titles in 20 NBA seasons

Anybody that knows me knows that I’m totally in favor of arming all the Blacks, but in my mind, we might need those weapons to make our Grand Escape. Imagine if Moses and the Israelites had all had AKs. It’d have been like:

“Pharaoh, you REALLY need to let my people go!”

But one thing I cannot get behind is random acts of foolishness by Black people with guns. When we turn them on each other, for real at least, it’s like we’re shooting down family members that we’re eventually, ultimately gonna need.

And I know that Gilbert Arenas was clowning because I know his character without actually knowing the man. The boy’s a fool. He wears the number ‘0’ because that’s how many minutes his high school friends predicted that he’d get in playing time when he decided to attend the University of Arizona. Rescued and raised by his single father after his mother went off the drug deep end, it’s easy to imagine that Gilbert is and has been working with some issues that—despite the fact that we all have issues—were probably heavier than the average man’s share. Then this NBA season starts, Gilbert’s really, finally, ready to play a complete season after coming back for a career threatening injury in 2007 and the first news we hear about the guy is that Shaq is shagging his fiancé.

Now, fess up fellahs, Shaq on top of your lady is not the image that anybody wants. And you gotta go out nightly and play basketball with everybody (friend and foe) knowing that?

I don’t want anybody to think that I wrote this blog to solicit charitable contributions to the Gilbert Arenas Defense Fund, but I’m also troubled by the major media making it seem as if the guy choked his coach or punched a fan or got somebody paralyzed in a strip club shooting or something. By pulling guns on each other in a locker room, even though they were only playing—well, Gilbert was playing, Javaris Crittenton might have been dead-ass— was stupid; but just that. Of course, Gilbert being Gilbert, he compounded his stupidity by drawing mock, finger pistols on his teammates during a team huddle. This earned him an indefinite suspension from the league.

But as far as Gilbert Arenas being made out to be such a major criminal; to borrow from Ed Lover, C’mon Son! Gilbert’s ‘crime’, if we even wanna consider it a crime, was, like the man himself, just not that serious.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – Basketball star Shaquille O’Neal has paid for the funeral of a 5-year-old North Carolina girl whose kidnapping and slaying received national news coverage.

The Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina reported Thursday that theCleveland Cavaliers player was touched by the case of Shaniya Davis.

More than 2,000 people attended her funeral Sunday. The girl’s body was found Nov. 16 beside a rural road.

Her mother, Antionette Davis, is charged with human trafficking and child abuse involving prostitution. Mario McNeill is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping.

The funeral home declined to say what the service cost.

A Cavaliers official did not return calls from The Associated Press early Thursday. The funeral home declined comment.

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NewsOne’s Full Coverage Of The Shaniya Davis Case

This video is from Shaq’s upcoming reality show, where he competes with various athletes.

Watch The Video

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