THE RUNDOWN: I DON'T LIKE SHAQ VERY MUCH

by Davey, Blown Coverage

The Rundown is a weekly "gambling" column based on and inspired by the time I spent working at sports books.

As I was reading Simmons' annual "NBA Trade Value" column today, two things made me pretty giddy. First, he ranked Dwight Howard no. 2 in trade value right now. In other words, as of right now, the only other guy with more trade value (considering age, ceiling, cap hit etc. etc.) would be LeBron James.

So, my Magic made a right choice by picking Howard over Emeka Okafur a few seasons ago and the leap that Howard is making right now to that elite level is pretty amazing to see. But the other thing that brought a smile to my face was the fact that the original Orlando Magic big man, Shaq, was totally left off the list.

Two seasons ago, Simmons still considered Shaq to be a top-15 guy in terms of trade value. Now, he's not even top-50. That's quite a drop if you think about it and frankly, I don't mind that at all.

If I were to make a list of players or coaches that have brought me the most pain during my years of following sports, Shaq would have that number one position locked up pretty securely. Up until a few years ago, I would have to have put Michael Jordan first, but recent events have catapulted Shaq over MJ.

And if you're wondering who would be on that list, it's pretty extensive but I'm going to just put the guys that really stick out.

- Kirby Puckett and Jack Morris (Kept the Braves from winning the World Series in '91)
- Jim Leyritz (F*ck this guy. His homerun in game 3 turned the series around and kept the Braves from repeating as champs)
- Chris Burke (Walk-off homerun in the 18th inning! eliminated Atlanta in the '05 play-offs)
- The entire Jacksonville Jaguars team from '99 (Beat Miami 62-7 in the play-offs in what would be Dan Marino's last game)
- Ricky Williams (Abandoned Miami in '04. Went from league's leading rusher to league's biggest joke. The team still hasn't recovered)
- Nick Saban (Offered Dolphin fans hope with arrival in '05. Picked Culpepper over Brees heading into the '06. Disappeared into the night afterwards and opened the floodgates for this horrible season)
- Dave Wannstedt (Ricky got the shit started, Saban completely opened the floodgates but it was Wannstedt who laid the current foundation of this team)
- KirbyFreeman/KyleWright (The two clowns attempting to play quarterback for the Miami Hurricanes the past couple of seasons. They made Brock Berlin look like Carson Palmer)
- Hakeem Olajuwon (Led Houston team that swept Orlando in the '94 season Nba Finals)
- Michael Jordan (His Bulls swept the Magic in the '95 Eastern Conference Finals and things have never been the same, but I'll have to explain a bit more)

So yes, I started following the Magic around the '93 season. By the time '94 came around, Orlando had two of the league's brightest young stars in Shaq and Penny Hardaway and combined with the likes of Dennis Scott, Nick Anderson and Horace Grant, they became one of the funnest teams to watch.

That team was "the boss" like Liston would say. That intro was the boss. The green mascot was the boss. The fact that they made it to the Finals was also very bossy.

In the Finals however they got outplayed by a much more experienced Houston Rockets team led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Houston swept Orlando but there was no reason to believe that this team wouldn't be back regularly in the Finals. Heck, they even beat Jordan on the way to making the Finals..

But Jordan regained his swagger the next season and the '95-'96 Bulls were playing on levels we hadn't seen before. They dominated their way to a 72-win regular season and swept Orlando in the Conference Finals and went on to beat the Supersonics for the title as Jordan got his 4th ring.

In the off-season, Shaq choose the money and bolted to L.A. I can't say that I blame him but I'd like to call this "the Curse of Shaq" because Orlando has never been the same.

Penny was left to carry the team alone but he got frustrated and asked for a trade a few seasons later. Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill were supposed to be the next big duo but it never materialized as Hill suffered season ending injury after season ending injury. McGrady got bitter and demanded a trade and the ensuing Steve Francis experiment also failed.

And even now as we have the next big star in Dwight Howard, I'm still not going to be happy until this team makes out of the first round of the play-offs.

Now, you can argue that Jordan would have kept Orlando from winning any titles in those next 3 years, it would have still been fun to watch that battle. Orlando would have been right there with Chicago along with the Pacers, Heat and Knicks. Jordan would have probably still come out on top, but we couldn't even see Orlando compete anymore after Shaq left.

Shaq went to L.A. and got a new sidekick in Kobe and in '99, they found themselves in the Western Conference Finals against the Trailblazers. The series went to game 7 and since I had a feeling that Portland would pull it out, I put a big amount of money on the Blazers to win.

Now here's where things get really painful. The Blazers put in an epic choke performance during the 4th quarter and the Lakers pulled off the biggest game 7 comeback of all-time. I lost my money, Shaq was back in the Finals and he would go on to win 3 titles in a row. You can imagine how that made me feel....

But don't worry, the big guy decided to add a bit more salt to my already gaping wound. After his relationship with Kobe soured, Shaq left L.A. and came back to Florida. But no, he wasn't returning to Orlando. Nope, he was joining the cross-town rival Heat to team with the next budding young star, Dwayne Wade.

And yes, you know how this story ends up. Shaq and Wade led the Heat to the Finals in the '05-'06 season against the Dallas Mavericks. I decided to put cash on the Mavericks to win the series because I just couldn't imagine that Shaq could possibly bring me anymore pain than he already had.

Dallas took a 2-0 series lead but Miami came back to win the next 4 and Shaq had his 4th ring. He finally won one in Florida, but not with Orlando. I mean, how brutal is that??

Imagine the joy that Bengals fans must have felt when they drafted Carson Palmer. Now imagine Carson leaving the Bengals after their play-off season to join the 49ers. He leads San Fran to a few titles while the Bengals flounder and then returns to Ohio, only not to Cincy but to Cleveland as he leads the Browns to a championship. That's basically the equivalent of what I had to deal with.

So yeah, excuse me if I'm enjoying his rapid decline just a tad too much. He hasn't given me many reasons to smile over the past 10 years or so.