Talent This Big Can’t Be Hidden

Where’s his wig? In walks Shaquille O’Neal in his Size-20 shoes and I would recognize him anywhere. He is not wearing what he calls “my Michael Jackson wig,” the one with the floppy black curls, the one that the Shaq has been using as a disguise so that he can--get this--travel incognito.

He rode the Orlando Magic’s team bus into Sacramento the other day. A TV news crew stood waiting. One by one, out stepped the players, until the TV guy noticed that the bus was empty.

“Where’s Shaq?” he asked.

“Got off,” he was told.

That must be some wig. The Shaq stands 7 feet high. He weighs 303. His hands are nine inches wide and 11 inches long. Hands like these couldn’t just rock the cradle. Hands like these could be the cradle. And to cover Shaquille O’Neal with a wig is like throwing a tarp over the Eiffel Tower and telling tourists: “I don’t know. It’s around here someplace.”

Last time he was in Los Angeles, the Shaq told Arsenio Hall that he had entered an automobile dealership wearing a large safari hat, only to have it knocked off by a ceiling fan.

Wigs. Hats. You never know what roof will be covering the Shaq. Upon disembarking an airplane in Orlando, he was wearing Mickey Mouse ears. He looked like a 7-foot Annette Funicello.

For his first official game at the Forum as a licensed member of the NBA--he had played in Magic Johnson’s midsummer charity game--the new darling of professional basketball, my Shaquille amour, was dressed casually Tuesday morning in a Magic (the Orlando kind) sweat shirt. Later that night, he changed into the black pin stripes of a team that must employ Al Capone’s tailor.

Shaq wasn’t sure how to dress last time he was in town. His agent, Leonard Armato, advised him to wear a suit over to Arsenio’s. But Shaq asked: “How can I rap in a suit?” So, they compromised. Shaq slipped into something a little more comfortable during a commercial so that he could belt out “What’s Up, Doc?” with his favorite rappers, Fu Schnickens, with whom he rocked Arsenio’s house.

It is Armato who first called his client a cross between the Terminator and Bambi. By now, everybody has his or her own description of O’Neal. Like Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon, who says: “You know what he looks like? A bigger me.”

The man can best be described as the Basketball Player of Tomorrow.

Television once plugged Magic vs. Bird. Last Sunday, during a Laker-Celtic game, NBC yakked away about its next attraction of Shaquille O’Neal against Charles Barkley--Shaq vs. Sir Charles.

This is when I knew that the world was officially upside-down. Communism and the Berlin Wall fell, a Democrat was in the White House and I was actually looking forward to Orlando vs. Phoenix.

I think of Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley as the Beaver Cleaver and Eddie Haskell of basketball. Shaq is 20, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, almost an innocent. Charles is older, wiser and more of a wise guy, full of mischief. Shaq would fool a TV guy with a wig. Charles would give him a hotfoot.

Asked before Tuesday’s game against the Lakers how he likes being swamped with adoration and attention, O’Neal said: “I come in with the attitude that it’s part of my job. Some guy licking envelopes for a living might not like it every morning. He might hate the taste. But it’s part of his job.”

Taking things in stride is important to the man in the 20 high tops. He wanted to play for a Los Angeles NBA team, for instance, but says: “When I was drafted, I realized what a hassle it would be to hold out. I didn’t want all the haggling and BS-ing of sitting out a whole season. I didn’t need everything handed to me. I don’t have crazy clauses where I have to be one of the top-paid players in the league or any such thing.”

No, but he does have a seven-year, $40-million deal with Orlando. Plus 10 mil more from a shoe company. But the Shaq also shelled out for hundreds of free meals at Thanksgiving. He gave away thousands of dollars of toy-store gift certificates to needy kids at Christmas.

“I always say, ‘Get ready,” teammate Nick Anderson says. “Because the Shaq is coming to an arena near you.”

And he packs ‘em in.

“Most people come to see the basketball. Some people come to see you get dumped on your butt,” O’Neal said Tuesday. “I’m big, I’m mobile, I dunk hard and I can dribble the length of the floor. If I was them, I would come see Shaq, too.”