Ben Pepper is the Bomb!!

[peter delevett <pdelevett@amcity.com>]

Greg - would you regard Wilt Chamberlain as "one of the biggest busts this
league has ever seen?" 

I have gotten sick of people saying O'Neal was not a winner at LSU -- his
first year he never even saw the ball because Chris Jackson was constantly
flinging it up, his last two years after Jackson went pro Dale Brown had
nobody else with any talent on the squad; teams were packing it in against
O'Neal and he still was averaging like 28 and 10. I seem to remember a game
against Arizona where he absolutely dominated the "Tucson Skyline" lineup of
Brian Williams, Sean Rooks & Chris Mills. No? O'Neal went to the NBA finals in
just his 3rd year in the league -- once he was surrounded by enough
complementary talent (Hardaway, Ho Grant, Anderson and the player formerly
known as Dennis Scott). While he's been with the Lakers they've perenially
been among the league leaders in regular season wins; they swept a very very
good Seattle team last year before falling to the Jazz because Nick Van Exel
and Rick Fox were missing open jump shots. 

I think O'Neal is loaded with "killer instinct" - have you ever seen the look
on his face when he plays? Yeah, I wish for his sake he'd spend his summers
with a free throw coach instead of cutting records and filming terrible
movies, and I agree with your point that he hasn't yet mastered the art of
pacing himself over a game so that he's not worn out at the end by trying to
carry the team. But that latter criticism sounds an awful lot like one they
used to make about a guy named Jordan, back before he started winning
championships -- at about the same stage of his career where O'Neal is now.

I am no Lakers fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems ludicrous
to me the degree to which people on this list denigrate O'Neal. There is not a
player on our team -- hell, any two players -- I wouldn't trade for him. 

BTW, in regards to your other post, Mr. Ghost is really Dick Vitale.


Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 11:19:18 -0800
From: "Odegaard, Greg M." <GMOdegaa@rmc.com>
Subject: RE: Pick a player

>As Warwick nicely stated,
>Shaq could eventually be one of the biggest busts this league has ever seen.
>Sure he has all the skills God could ever give to a guy, and he certainly
>has a decent level of desire, but he is not a winner.  Never has been, and
>hopefully of course never will be.  He doesn't have the killer instinct and
>he absolutely doesn't have the poise to put the final pieces together when
>it is do or die time, and make his teammates better in the process.