O'Neal, Third in MVP Voting, Can Take Out the Two Ahead of Him

By BILL PLASCHKE

May 16, 2001 12 AM PT

“He was third? That’s a slap in the face.”

Laker Coach Phil Jackson was talking about the voting for the NBA’s most valuable player, throwing verbal elbows, covering Goliath’s back.

“He’s the most dominating player in the league and he’s third?”

Jackson was talking about how it was one thing for Shaquille O’Neal to lose to MVP winner Allen Iverson . . . but to also finish far behind somebody with a lower scoring average, lower rebounding average and fewer blocks?

“Tim Duncan is a great player, but. . . .”

Yeah, finishing second Tuesday, with 11 more first-place votes than O’Neal, was the guy who will face him Saturday.

Yeah, Tim Duncan.

Put that in your spurs and smoke it.

Call it the slap that started a series.

The coach brought it up without even being asked.

The center was so distressed he left practice without even talking about it.

To you or me or Kobe Bryant, it’s probably not such a big deal.

“Right now, it’s all about winning championships,” Bryant said, shrugging. “As far as the MVP goes, it’s all irrelevant.”

Not to The Big Sensitive.

His irritation makes it very relevant to the Lakers, who are hopeful the perceived slight will turn into big numbers this weekend when they visit Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs to begin their Western Conference finals showdown.

“This should be more firepower for Shaq,” Rick Fox said to reporters with a grin. “Play it up for us, will ya?”

The problem isn’t that O’Neal didn’t win the award again. There was no question he was not the MVP this year. He knows it. His coach knows it. His teammates know it.

Even broadcaster Fred Hickman, voting for Iverson for a second consecutive year, finally got it right.

O’Neal began the year too slow, too distracted, too constricted by nagging injuries. There were times he pouted. There were times he didn’t play hard.

By the time he became the best player in the league again after the All-Star break, it was too late for the Lakers to again win the most regular-season games.

He finished third in the league in scoring average, third in rebounding average, first in field-goal percentage, fourth in blocked shots.

But his team finished second in the Western Conference.

“I tell [Shaq] that to be MVP, he deserves it if he earns it,” Jackson said. “Maybe this year he didn’t earn it.”

Put it another way: If O’Neal were the MVP, then the Lakers wouldn’t be boarding a plane to San Antonio this weekend.

The voting was completed before O’Neal began tearing through the playoffs, so Iverson was a lock.

Said Fox: “Compared to how Shaq played last year, he didn’t match that effort until the second half of the season.”

Said Horace Grant: “I think it was fair.”

It wasn’t about Iverson.

It was about the guy who finished between O’Neal and Iverson.

Even with final numbers similar to last season, O’Neal finished closer to fourth place than second, getting 578 points, edging Chris Webber’s 521 points while finishing far below Duncan’s 706 points.

O’Neal was so distressed by the situation, he parted a media horde with his two giant hands after practice and disappeared out the back of the locker room without even taking a shower.

I followed him to some bouncing, whirring red contraption that was evidently his car. I asked him about the MVP voting.

For the first time in his five years here, O’Neal refused to answer my question.

“I’m off that, bro’,” he said, closing the door and driving away.

One might cite him for showing immaturity in not dealing with it.

Others might applaud him for having the maturity to cool off before he says something he will regret.

It’s all or nothing with O’Neal, and he knows it. He is keenly aware of the thin line that he walks between superstar and supernatural, between hero and freak.

He knows that even as he has established himself as the most dominating force in the league--and who else would you choose to start a franchise?--there are other big men who some consider better players.

Duncan is one of them, the main one, a guy who is one inch shorter than O’Neal but, carrying about 60 fewer pounds, is praised for everything that O’Neal is not.

A soft touch. A nice jump shot. A smooth game.

O’Neal wonders how many more times he has to score 40 points and grab 20 rebounds and block five shots to convince people that he is more than a slam-dunking, lane-blocking silo. He thought last year’s MVP award changed that perception.

Surely, today, he is wondering again.

“Shaq is certainly happy for Allen Iverson and his achievements,” said Leonard Armato, O’Neal’s agent. “But this could serve as added motivation as he enters the part of the playoffs where he could face the two guys who voters put ahead of him.”

Beginning Saturday with the guy directly in front of him.

There is really only one answer to all this, of course.

“I want the playoff MVP,” said Jackson, and here’s guessing nobody will need to slap O’Neal to get him to understand.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MVP VOTING

Top three vote-getters in the balloting. Complete list, D6

ALLEN IVERSON, Philadelphia

1st Place--93 Total--1,121

TIM DUNCAN, San Antonio

1st Place--18 Total--706

SHAQUILLE O’NEAL, Lakers