This O’Neal Awaits Chance to Star in NBA Spotlight

Great. Just great. The regular season--the last couple regular seasons, in fact--should have been enough. But now this.

He’s not even the best O’Neal in the series.

He’s not even the best player in the series who made the jump from an East Coast high school to a West Coast NBA team via the first round of the 1996 draft.

The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant has the all-star recognition and Shaquille O’Neal has the surname, so Jermaine O’Neal of the Portland Trail Blazers lives the logjam more than ever, just when he thought that wasn’t possible. He shows maturity and patience. He just doesn’t show much on the court, because he can’t get out there.

In a season in which Bryant, a good friend, has run down the superstar expectations at breakneck pace, O’Neal’s development at forward has been more like broken-leg speed. An average of 12.3 minutes a game during the regular season. A total of 15 minutes in the first three games of the Western Conference finals. The third-string power forward on a team using two.

“He’s certainly been frustrated with it at times, and rightfully so because I think he understands he has abilities that probably, at times, would be better served if he had a lot of playing time to make mistakes through,” Portland Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “But on the other hand, he’s been blessed with an experience of being in the playoffs and see how this all operates and to still know that he’s very well accepted and perceived as far as for the future of our franchise.”

For the present, he is behind Rasheed Wallace and Brian Grant. In practice, fellow Trail Blazers marvel at his shot-blocking skills--”He’s just been terrorizing cats this year in there,” Grant says--and his athleticism, but too often that has been the extent of the audience. The chances to show it to paying customers have been few.

Part of it is his own doing, of course. O’Neal, from Eau Claire, S.C., could have left as a free agent, gone to a place where he could have gotten big minutes along with big money. Instead, he signed a four-year, $24-million deal with the Trail Blazers, well aware that Grant and Wallace each had five seasons left on their deals at the time. The good news was that the financial commitment brought a strong statement from the organization about what it obviously continues to believe is a promising future.

“It makes it real difficult,” O’Neal said. “My first three years, I kind of used it as a learning experience. My fourth year, I really looked forward to playing in the playoffs. I had an OK season, but the playoffs have been kind of disappointing. I haven’t gotten to play as much as I want. But winning kind of levels out everything.

“I had 14, 15 chances to be a starter this year, but getting 30 points a night and losing doesn’t really matter in this league. You take a guy like [Vancouver’s] Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who has a ton of talent and who’s a big-time scorer. But his team loses and nobody ever notices, so it doesn’t really matter.

“Sometimes you kind of look back at some of the decisions you make, and that goes with life. You make decisions and you kind of look back and say, ‘OK, maybe I should have done this or done that.’ It’s tough. Obviously I want to play. I want to play a lot. I know I have a ton of talent, but how much talent I don’t know because I haven’t really played consistent minutes. I’m at a point in my career now where I want to really see how much talent I have, night in and night out.”

He sounds sorry that he locks himself in here.

“It’d be unfair to my team and this city and this organization that’s been so great to me, after they gave me the chance to play NBA basketball right out of high school, it would be kind of selfish to speak on myself and things that I want,” he said. “I’m going to have the chance to do things, maybe this summer. Who knows? I know this organization wants me to be here, the city wants me to be here, so I’m happy about that.”

He didn’t say he will ask for a trade. They’ll talk. The Trail Blazers will say they want him working on his offensive game. He will say he wants to get a sense of the direction of his career. A couple days ago, Dunleavy gave this one:

“Within the next two years, he’s going to be stepping into huge minutes, and that’s what he’s got to be ready for.”

Said Grant: “He’ll be a star in this league.”

For now, it’s quite an internship. Take Game 3 on Friday night.

He replaced Arvydas Sabonis at center in the first quarter, but only for the final 23.1 seconds, then was back on the bench at the start of the second. He replaced Sabonis in the second period for the final 2:22, then was back on the bench for the start of the third. He replaced Sabonis with 38.3 seconds left in the third, but didn’t even reach the end of the quarter, picking up a foul, his second, and getting replaced by Detlef Schrempf with :15.6 showing. With the game on the line in the fourth, he sat.

It has been that kind of postseason, while Bryant is at the forefront.

“I know my chance is coming real soon,” O’Neal said.

Sure. Some day.