There’s Always a Method to O’Neal’s Madness

He stood in front of his locker Tuesday, his shorts too long, his free throws too funky, his coach too mean.

“I guess this is ‘[Mess] With Shaquille Week,”’ he said.

But he said it with a smile.

To understand the many creaks of the town’s biggest weather vane, understand that it has been sculpted in the shape of that smile.

No matter which way Shaquille O’Neal’s mood turns, it is always eventually ends in a smile.

A team has been brought together with that smile.

Two NBA championships have been won with that smile.

If we’ve learned nothing else after six years in his company, it is that, if you don’t like the way our biggest kid is behaving, just wait five minutes.

He’ll slap Greg Ostertag one moment, then play tag with teammates the next.

He’ll accuse George Karl of wearing a dress, just before leaving the gym to pass out truckloads of clothes to needy children.

Tough as enamel, but sensitive as an ice cream-touched tooth.

Eager to dominate, but even more eager to please.

Just when you think he’s mad, he’s not.

Just when you think he wants to hurt somebody, he hugs them.

And by the middle of May, all this November rabble-rousing will be as stale as an uneaten drumstick.

O’Neal’s entire demeanor can be summed up in one moment Tuesday night, just five minutes into the Lakers’ eventual 98-93 victory over the Clippers.

He dunked on Michael Olowokandi and, behaving strangely like this was something new, took a step toward Olowokandi and glared at him.

Technical foul, taunting.

Moments later, after hitting a hook shot, O’Neal ran down the floor with his hands covering those penalized eyes, giggling.

As long as he has the heart of a pup trapped in the body of a bear, this is how it will always be with O’Neal.

A threat, then a joke.

So when this “[Mess] With Shaquille Week” started last Friday?

When he ripped Coach Phil Jackson for constantly tweaking him about his foul shooting and fining him for missing practice to be with his newborn girl?

All about as serious as a faded Superman tattoo.

O’Neal indeed feels like Jackson should cut him some slack considering his position on the team.

“When he came back from the birth, he wanted a pat on the back, not a kick in the butt,” said John Salley, former Laker who played with O’Neal and has been coached by Jackson. “He feels like what he does, it’s never good enough.”

But, indeed, Jackson is just trying to treat everyone the same, a philosophy which led directly to locker-room unity and two titles.

“Phil says nobody is bigger than the squad, and he’s just showing it,” said Salley, one of the stars of Fox Sports’ “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.” “Shaq asks me why Phil always has to keeping yelling at him, I tell him, hey, the guy has to coach something because he hasn’t coached much this year.”

Nobody is right. Nobody is wrong. Everybody just trying to stay interested until the playoffs.

It will all be forgotten by, well, judging from that O’Neal smile Tuesday, it has been forgotten already.

“Are you kidding me?” Salley asked. “Of course it will blow over. Look how Shaq’s conflict with Kobe blew over. This stuff with Shaq never lasts.”

The same fate likely awaits the remains of the next activity of “[Mess] With Shaquille Week”--the free-throw line shuffle.

This involves Monday’s revelations that teams--and specifically Dallas owner Mark Cuban--have complained to the league about O’Neal’s tendency to step over the foul line before the ball hits the rim.

O’Neal said Tuesday that he is angry at the implications that he is cheating, noting, “It does surprise me, because I’ve been proven to do damage when I get mad. If they want me to do damage, I’ll do damage.”

Well, actually, opponents want Shaq to start worrying about a free-throw style that has resulted in an improved 58.3 percentage.

The rest of the league--Jackson said the Phoenix Suns were another complainant--is simply hoping to mess him up.

“Which tells us that, against Shaq, they don’t think they have a chance,” Rick Fox said.

O’Neal hears this same message. Even though Jackson said tapes of his foul shooting show a wandering foot, O’Neal said he’s not looking at any tapes.

“I’ll hit ‘em when we need ‘em, brother,” he said.

Seemingly worried about his feet, he missed his first two free throws Tuesday.

Then he shrugged and hit his next two.

During the final moments, he missed two more, both of them nearly air balls. But he then grabbed a rebound that led to the victory.

A worry, then a shrug.

Then came Tuesday’s news that the league had fined O’Neal, among others, $5,000 for wearing pants that were too baggy.

In other words, he was caught digging around the equipment room for shorts that were too big for his waist.

Jackson said he could understand the league wanting to hem up the player’s current “prison garb” fashion by an inch.

O’Neal acted like he had no idea what Jackson meant by “prison garb,” but said he thought the league was silly.

“We’re just getting in line with what the kids are doing ... look what they sell at Foot Locker,” he said. “The league has to decide what they want to do, discipline us or make money.”

Then he grabbed the waistband of his pants and pulled it up to his chest.

“I’m about to wear some John Stockton shorts,” he said. “If that’s what they want ... “

He then acted as if he were weeping, dabbing his eyes with a pair of undershorts.

“I’m so sorry, I was just doing it for the kids, the kids like our kind of shorts,” he said.

At that point, it was difficult to tell if Shaquille O’Neal was still mad.

It was difficult to tell if he ever was.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.