Earlier today, Shaquille O'Neal tweeted out a link to video at a social media website to announce that he was "about to retire." Most everybody assumes that means he's finished and calling it a day. Of course, given how Shaq can be sometimes, does anybody really know whether this is 100% legit? If you watch the brief Shaq announcement, check out the video that immediately follows with Shaq singing some Prince. It's awesome.
Although Shaquille O'Neal's "relevancy" has waned in recent years, he will go down as one of the fairly colorful characters in NBA and sports history. Although he might have grown a little lazy at times, Shaq at one point was one of the most dominant big men in NBA history.
However, upon retirement, it's entirely possible he'll be remembered as much for his quirky personality as he will be for his dominant years with the Magic and Lakers. After all, this is a guy who upon joining the Boston Celtics went out to Harvard Square and sat perfectly still as a statute and let people just take pictures around him. Oh and he sent out a tweet about it to get people out for it. Random stuff like that made him an amusing character.
At this point is Chad Ochocinco the closest follow-up character to Shaq? He has never really had Shaq's immense upside so he might not qualify for the strongest mix of superior talent and quirky personality. Or maybe he does. Is Ochocinco the successor to the man with a thousand nicknames? And thanks to Arrowhead Pride for posting about this earlier, thus giving me a post idea to steal.