If longtime Lakers trainer Gary Vitti is The Princess Bride’s Vizzini, then Shaquille O’Neal is Turkish wrestler, Fezzik.
Over at Sports Ilustrated, Lee Jenkins put together a narrative combining some of Vitti’s best stories during his years as the trainer of what may be the NBA’s most storied franchise. And Vitti has them, maybe none better than this tale he told Jenkins about Shaq, a large man with a just-as-large personality.
July 2002, Port of Los Angeles Police Department, and Shaq is named second-class reserve officer. He plies his new trade on Vitti, frisking him daily, occasionally throwing him against the trainer’s room wall with enough force to require painkiller injections. Vitti bites Shaq’s hand in retaliation. They are playing, but not always. They once go two weeks without speaking, Shaq communicating via dry erase board, because Vitti refuses to excuse him from practice. “You’re too big,” Vitti tells him. “You take up too much space. You actually f*ck up the game of basketball. You have to practice because there’s no one else like you.” Shaq appreciates the description. He practices.
It’s not a shocker to learn that the always goofy Shaq would try to scheme his way out of practicing. O’Neal was notorious for cruising through regular seasons and turning on Full Shaq Mode once the postseason came around. But let’s discuss these frisks.
Was O’Neal just beating up the team trainer? It doesn’t sound quite like it. It felt more playful. Was superhuman Shaq so unaware of his own strength that this was just roughhousing for him? It’s not like I have a 7-foot-1, 330-pound friend to whom I can ask these questions. I’m stuck. We’re all stuck.
If this isn’t brought up on Inside the NBA on TNT on Thursday night, we’re all worse off for it.
(Via Sports Illustrated)
