Shaquille O’Neal took a break Sunday morning from tweeting about cars to add his take to the prolonged hiring process for Orlando’s head coaching job. Via Twitter, O’Neal let it be known he was not impressed with the Magic’s supposed front-runner, Jock (sic) Vaughn. Vaughn’s a pretty ho-hum guy, whose Wikipedia page has as long an entry for his academic achievements as his professional career. The journeyman guard who played for an impressive 12 years had little to do with Shaq, it would appear. This tweet is less about Vaughn and more about his love for the other two candidates.
Orlando magic is about to hire jock Vaugh over mike Malone or Brian shaw are u kidding me, wow, good luck winning wit Dat team Dwite howard
— SHAQ (@SHAQ) July 22, 2012
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He’s talking about Brian Shaw, the Pacers assistant who was one of Phil Jackson‘s top assistants and a former Laker teammate of O’Neal. The other is Mike Malone, who’s now an assistant at Golden State but was on the bench with Mike Brown in Cleveland when O’Neal played 53 games there in 2009-10. “Jock” Vaughn could have been anyone in this case.
Among other replies to fans calling him out for leaving Orlando (“never bailed I was a free agent I took the best offer something u kno nothing about u didn’t even play n hi school fool”) Shaq (a Magic fan, he tells another tweep) went on to explain to another fan the reason behind the tweet.
@PCTrojan I never trash I speak from facts him over mike Malone or b shaw they Dnt have a shot not Nxt years not n 10 years u wanna bet
— SHAQ (@SHAQ) July 22, 2012
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The final call will come from the owning DeVos family on the Magic hire, but Shaq seems to have an idea it’s a done deal more than two months after Stan Van Gundy was fired on May 21. And nothing personal, Jock.
Who do you think should be hired?
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