288: 124: The Battle of Hypocrisy (Vote for monthly ticket!)_2 288: 124: The Battle of Hypocrisy (Vote for monthly ticket!)_2 Harlan also warned Mourning, telling him that painkillers could potentially cause renal damage.
Moreover, a true hardman can’t just rely on little pills to keep going.
But with Mourning’s personality, he seed not to care at all, “As long as it lets play, that’s all that matters!”
Riley and Mourning wouldn’t think too much about it; they just wanted results—to crush the Orlando Magic!
Harlan shook his head, what else could he say?
He knew Mourning was tough, none of the centers produced by Georgetown University were weak.
But he didn’t anticipate that Mourning had reached a point where he was utterly disregarding his health; it was only the regular season, after all.
Pat Riley always seed to co across players who were willing to be pushed to their limits; Harlan really didn’t know whether this was Riley’s luck or the players’ misfortune.
On the Heat’s side, they had already prepared for the upcoming Florida derby.
However, on the Magic’s side, there were so minor episodes before the big ga.
Two afternoons before the ga, Shaquille O’Neal, who was about to return, appeared in Bristol, Connecticut.
He was invited today to participate in an ESPN radio interview program at the ESPN campus.
In the program, the radio host, Tony Bruno, with his many years of talk show experience, created an extrely relaxed conversational atmosphere, and Shaq got more and more excited as they talked, crossing larger and larger lines.
“Roger’s legs are the longest I’ve ever seen, you all know what I an.”
“My legs?
I’m only second in the whole locker room!”
“Michael Jordan is like an old luxury car; no one denies his past glory, but now he has to give way to new cars.”
As the conversation went on, they inevitably talked about the Magic and Shaq’s contract renewal issue.
“Shaq, before the local newspaper Sentinel ran a poll asking if the team should spend a lot of money to keep you.
A whopping 65% of fans thought it wasn’t worth it.
What happened to cause such a poll result?
Was it because of the injury impact?”
This was undoubtedly an explosive question and one that needed cautious answering, but the thick-skinned Shaq still kept his usual unfiltered style:
“Nothing happened, just so people playing their pressure gas on .
Once I’m back, I’m gonna dunk and then yell into the cara to Mr.
DeVos: ‘Give the money!’ Yeah, he’ll do it, because they need .”
O’Neal, with an almost arrogant attitude, called out the Magic managent.
After the show, Shaq imdiately received a call from his agent, “Buddy, you probably shouldn’t do that, disrespecting the boss is not a good negotiation tactic!”
“Is it really that serious?
I was just joking, I have absolute respect for Mr.
DeVos.” O’Neal spoke the truth; he hadn’t thought that his words would have any impact.
“And you said the poll was so kind of trick pressure from soone.
Are you firing shots at the managent?”
“No, if I wanted to fire shots, I would na nas directly.
Besides, what I said was the truth.
That jerk John just wanted to use the dia to rush back and express his dissatisfaction with .”
“Even if you didn’t an it that way, John Gabriel must already feel like you are calling him out!
We screwed up, Shaq!
If you crave a contract equal to Roger’s, you’ve got to stop saying these things!”
O’Neal felt annoyed, wondering why he needed to be so cautious.
Had he not played in last season’s finals?
Or was his average score just 5 points per ga?
Wasn’t it only natural for the Magic team to give him a high-paying contract renewal?
Shaq’s controversial statents threw the Magic into a whirlwind; the next afternoon at the AdventHealth Training Center, John Gabriel, the man behind the curtain, beca the main topic among journalists.
Now all the journalists were curious as to whether the Sentinel poll was actually a pressure tactic by the Magic managent.
O’Neal flatly denied this, “I never said it was managent; don’t try to use as an excuse to stir up trouble in the team.
Such tricks won’t work on .”.
Roger was succinct in his answer to this issue, “I have nothing to say about this matter, no comnt.”
Although both key players refused to answer the question, the dia’s favorite thing was to speculate wildly.
The idea that contract renewal negotiations between the Magic and O’Neal were not going smoothly beca a consensus among all dia, and they were reporting frantically about it.
This issue indeed created a rift between managent and players.
Rich DeVos believed he had always respected his players, but he was quite dissatisfied with the way O’Neal talked on the radio, too high and mighty.
John Gabriel was the angriest because he felt betrayed.
Why would O’Neal say that?
Why did he think the newspaper poll had anything to do with managent?
Only two people could have told Shaq about it, either Roger or the equipnt manager Jacob Diamond.
That day of the conversation, only the two of them were present.
Roger knew who had told Shaq; he had never ntioned any connection between Gabriel and the Sentinel to avoid damaging the relationship between managent and O’Neal.
But the last ti when Shaq backed him up, he remarked, “Nothing escapes Shaq’s ears.”
Considering that Jacob had a good private relationship with Shaq, it was quite normal for him to share so information with Shaq.
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