O’Neal Isn’t Lean but He Will Be Mean

Meet the new Shaq. Same as the old Shaq.

“The first year, I was mean,” Shaquille O’Neal said Tuesday at Laker camp at the University of Hawaii. “I came into the league and nobody knew what to expect. Then sometimes I got nice. But now I’m going back to the dunking, the hanging on the rim, leading my team.

So be warned. Haq-a-Shaq at your own risk.

“I’m tired of hearing, ‘He’s big and strong,’ ” said O’Neal, who is. “I don’t want to hear any of that [stuff] anymore. It’s not my fault. I work out. I work hard. I wasn’t born big and strong. I worked.

“If someone gives me a real hard foul, like I think was dirty, I’m going to react. That’s just instinct anyway.”

So what happens to the guy?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something not good.

“It’s kind of unfair. Guys get to grab and hold me. The minute I touch a guy, the guy flops and they want to call a foul. I don’t cry and I don’t complain. But the Haq-a-Shaq is no more.” Or else.

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Magic Johnson, having had the timetable for election to the Hall of Fame reconsidered several times because of comebacks and sentiment, is now headed for induction in 2002, although there is a slight chance that could be changed again when the board of directors meets next month. He was originally set for the 1997.