Shaq Talking Trash Everywhere but on the Court

I've never been a huge Shaq fan. I like watching him, but he has played for (and won a ring with) two of my four most hated teams. So I am not used to rooting for him.

I like the Suns, so I've been rooting for him of late, but he needs to watch his mouth, he's embarrassing himself.

His trash talking is coming at a rapid clip, despite him getting owned on the court. I know his cockiness has always been a trademark, but it's sort of like Izzy Mandelbaum in Seinfeld now.

Back in his prime, Shaq was a force of nature like anything seen before or since in the NBA. If you watch those old games of his, especially when he was on the Lakers, he is such a beast, it's hard to believe he ever lost a game.

When you win three straight titles and are in position to win a 4th, you can be as big of an A-hole as you want, because you've got the bling to back it up. Sure, he won a title with the Heat, but that was more of him being on D-Wade's (and the refs) team than anything he did.

Now, Shaq doesn't play both games of a back-to-back. Now, young centers like Bynum and Howard are the new dominant big men.

And Shaq doesn't like it. Which is understandable. But he doesn't need to make an ass out of himself on a regular basis.

This latest "War of Words" with Dwight Howard is just ridiculous. Dwight Howard is a billion times more effective at everything than Shaq is right now.

"He's a good player, but everything he's done I've invented, so I'm not impressed,'' O'Neal said. "For me to get my eyes wide open about another big man, he'll have to do something that I haven't seen before or something that I haven't invented. Everything that he's done, I've invented it.'

You know what you didn't invent? Playing 82 games a season. Shaq has never done that.

Because Dwight Howard has played and started 82 games (except for '05-'06, when he started 81) since he was drafted.

Shaq played 81 in '92-'93 and '93-'94. He hasn't broken the 60 game mark since ''04-'05.

Now we've got this flopping madness.

Shaquille O'Neal is a man of nearly as many languages as interests. When discussing New Jersey forward Jason Collins after Saturday's practice, the Heat center spoke Greek.

"They're all the same," O'Neal said of opposing interior defenders, from former NBA center Vlade Divac through Collins. "They all have their flop fraternity. A flopternity is what I call them. Flop flop flop."

Besides being a hilarious quote, it shows that Shaq has distaste for anyone who flops. Which I'm in complete agreement with.

Someone who railed for so many years about being on the wrong end of a flop would have to be a pretty big hypocrite to flop, right?

The two issues came to a head when the Suns played the Magic recently. Not only did Shaq have a chance to show up the Magic, his former team, and Stan Van Gundy, his former coach, but he could school that young whippersnapper as to what playing center in the NBA really means.

Instead he flopped like a fish, so much that Van Gundy called him out about it. Not only did he flop, but he lost to Howard, who outplayed him, and more importantly, got the win.

So did Shaq take this criticism gracefully? Of course not.

"I heard his comment. Flopping to me is doing it more than one time, and I realized when I tried to take the charge, as I went down, I realized that that play reminded me of his whole coaching career," O'Neal said of Van Gundy.

What does that even mean? It's like he's in grade school. "I'm not a flopper, you're a flopper. You're whole career is a flopper."

"All the players hate him. The players don't even like him. I hate frontrunners. I really do. I don’t like any frontrunners. There’s a pecking order involved. I've been there six times."

How can a coach be a front-runner? More often than not, a coach is anything but a front-runner, they'll stay with their crappy team as long as they can get a paycheck. Just ask Mike Dunleavy.

Once again, Shaq is going all grade-school. "You can't say that about me. Nobody likes you. Seriously. All your players hate you, you know."

Shaq is getting called out on flopping, and he's personally attacking the coach and his record in retaliation.

Real classy.

So Shaq, I like you on the Suns, and I wouldn't mind seeing you make a deep playoff run this year.

But please, if you're going to talk trash, back it up on the court.