ESPN: Shaquille O'Neal close to signing with Celtics

[Disco Volante]

Sources: Shaquille O'Neal, Celts close

Free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal will likely sign with the Boston Celtics, as soon as Tuesday night or Wednesday, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard.

O'Neal had said earlier Tuesday that he hopes to make a decision about his future soon, and both NBA.com and Comcast SportsNet New England indicated that the Celtics were "close" to signing the four-time NBA champion.

 

[ausbacker]

Despite Shaq's age that could develop an interesting tall man rotation if he, Perkins and Jermaine O'Neal sit on the bench in dress at the same time.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Even Hollywood couldn't write this script.

Let's face it ... Shaq wants to ruin Kobe's repeat ... $$$ is irrelevant.

 

[Kontradiction]

At this point, he's still better than Jermaine O'Neal. Shaq opens up against one of his old teams in the first game of the season.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Kobe: 'I Just Got One More Than Shaq' -- NBA FanHouse

Bryant admitted to being "hurt" during these playoffs, and joked about reporters trying to motivate him for next year with some of their questions. But the highlight was when Bryant was asked what this title means to him individually, and his answer,

"I just got one more than Shaq," brought the house down.

............................

 

[captain insano]

if shaq played for the celtics last year the celtics would have raised banner 18. he would have made just enough of a difference to tip the scales in the celtics favor against the lakers. i hope he gets signed

 

[Real World]

It's not a bad signing since it's for the vet minimum. It doesn't hurt to have him, and a 5 man post rotation of Shaq/Garnett/JO/Baby/Perkins. That's a lot of options to have, although none of them, aside from Jermaine O'Neill can hit a jumper from beyond 12 feet.

 

[BradyManny]

Shaq was still reasonably productive per 48 minutes. And it's worth noting most (or frankly, all) players production dips when joining a Lebron James team.

I really like the signing. We needed to get bigger and tougher. Shaq will be a great addition to the 2nd unit where - even at his age and with his lack of athleticism - he can still use his size to be an offensive threat down low.

We lost game 7 b/c of our bigs. Suffice it to say, Ainge realized this was a problem, and has corrected it.

 

[BradyManny]

It's not a bad signing since it's for the vet minimum. It doesn't hurt to have him, and a 5 man post rotation of Shaq/Garnett/JO/Baby/Perkins. That's a lot of options to have, although none of them, aside from Jermaine O'Neill can hit a jumper from beyond 12 feet.

KG can....granted, he didn't do it enough in the postseason consistently.

 

[Real World]

KG can....granted, he didn't do it enough in the postseason consistently.

Yes he can. Actually pretty well too. I screwed up my point, and meant to say of the centers. Perk, JO, and Shaq.

Speaking of Shaq...

YouTube - Fu-Schnickens feat.Shaquille O'Neal - What's up doc ? (Can we rock ?) (1993)!

 

[bigcountry75]

Well he signed a 2 year $3 mil contract.....2 years surprised me but for a guy that can give us a solid 20 min of the bench and abuse the other team while he is in there isn't bad at all.....We don't have to worry about not having enough size inside this season......Plus this really will allow the celts to take there time with Perk and not let him come back too early.....Hopefully he works as hard as welker and comes back 100% before his return date.....

 

[Boston Boxer]

i think with that signing we have a nice team...probably will not be able to match the Super Friends down in Miami, but it should be a good season

 

[JoeSixPat]

This is really a no brainer - hopefully he can play as well this season as he did last season.

His numbers last year were actually a bit better than I had hoped and expected Rasheed Wallace would have been for the team.... so we're potentially getting that at the vet minimum.

What's not to like?

Well, maybe the cult of personality that is Shaq but there's enough big names on this team already to keep him in check, even though the guy is a bit of an icon. I don't view it as a distraction for these guys.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Well he signed a 2 year $3 mil contract.....2 years surprised me but for a guy that can give us a solid 20 min of the bench and abuse the other team while he is in there isn't bad at all.....We don't have to worry about not having enough size inside this season......Plus this really will allow the celts to take there time with Perk and not let him come back too early.....Hopefully he works as hard as welker and comes back 100% before his return date.....

The O'Neal O'Neil combination is enough to get back to the playoffs.

I'd love to see Perk take his time, not rush it, and be 100% in tune and healthy for the playoffs.

 

[Kontradiction]

The O'Neal O'Neil combination is enough to get back to the playoffs.

I'd love to see Perk take his time, not rush it, and be 100% in tune and healthy for the playoffs.

Jermaine O'Neal sucks as a starter, but coming off the bench he will be nice to have.

 

[bigcountry75]

I was just thinking about something this morning and thought I would share....Could you imagine this team with taking 5 years of age off of PP, Ray, KG and Shaq.....Holy crap they would be unstoppable...

 

[JoeSixPat]

Jermaine O'Neal sucks as a starter, but coming off the bench he will be nice to have.

I see Shaq starting but getting less minutes than Jermaine in the regular season.

Big Baby gets a lot of minutes too as I'm not sure either Shaq or Jermaine can run the pick and roll that the Celts like to use.

I'd want to conserve Shaq for the playoffs as much as possible looking to him rather than Jermaine.

It's acutally going to be very interesting to see how Ainge uses them - while Jermaine's as big an "if" as Rasheed would have been, he has some skills but some major liability. Shaq has different skills and liabilities. As does Big Baby.

How Ainge tries to address that in his rotation and defensive as well as offensive playcalling will be interesting.

 

[SilverBullet]

They should put in Garnett and Shaq at the same time. DOMINATION

 

[bigcountry75]

I think they will have to start Shaq and bring Jermaine off of the bench....With all these high salaries they don't have the money to reinforce the floor for shaq and big baby to be standing/jumping on the same end of the floor together....

 

[JoeSixPat]

They should put in Garnett and Shaq at the same time. DOMINATION

I agree they should start Shaq... I would stop far short of the word "domination" but it does present some challenges for opposing teams and is probably the Celts best foot forward.

Shaq's liabilities are going to present some challenges for Doc Rivers as well so even though Shaq is starting Jermaine and Davis will collectively take the majority of minutes.

I'd guess Doc is thinking of a rotation that's going to require the team to adapt different offensive and defensive schemes for scheduled stretches of minutes for each player

The real question will be who Doc chooses to go with in crunch time (at least until Perkins is healthy.)

If not for the Heat the Celtics offseason moves would be creating most of the buzz in the league this year, with a team that was 13 minutes from Banner #18 making themselves stronger in the offseason.