Out of Triangle, Into Circle of Life for Man in Middle

Players can spend a season, a career, a lifetime seeking balance, and then sometimes fate brings the scales to rest exactly even.

Reality yanked Shaquille O’Neal back and forth between the extremes last week, taking his emotions from the death of his grandfather Thursday to the birth of his son early Saturday before dumping him in Target Center for the start of the NBA playoffs Sunday afternoon.

He emerged with a remarkable sense of equilibrium -- and, for the purposes of the Lakers’ bid for a fourth consecutive championship, with his game still intact.

He’s still the Target Center, demanding attention that threw the Minnesota Timberwolves’ defensive scheme out of whack. Still good enough to provide the Lakers with 32 points and 10 rebounds. Still good enough to control the middle on defense and block five shots. Still the steadying influence to repel a Timberwolf rally and enable the Lakers to coast to a 117-98 victory in Game 1.

Still Shaq.

“I’m at peace,” he said. “I have a great family. Things like this happen. You just have to move on. [His grandfather, Sirlester O’Neal] was a great man, and most of his dreams came true ... especially for his little grandson.

“[Saturday] I had a son. He’s beautiful ... glad he looks like his mother.”

He still had humor, mixed in with a little humility. Not too long ago -- maybe even two weeks ago -- he would have gone with his first instinct and said, “He takes after me.”

But his mind was on bigger subjects, bigger than even the baddest big man around.

He was thinking about the grand scheme of things. The circle of life.

“We talked a little bit today about springtime and Easter,” Brian Shaw said. “It’s a time of rebirth. If someone dies, someone else is brought into the world to keep everything in balance. He was close with his grandfather. He knows that his grandfather lived a full life, and he’s in a better place now. I know he wants to attend his funeral, and he’ll be OK with that.

“And then the joy that comes from having a kid, there’s nothing like that.”

O’Neal was given permission to miss the team plane to Minneapolis Saturday and travel on his own. He arrived later that night, and Rick Fox saw him in the hotel lobby.

“For a flight cross-country and having a baby, he seemed to be himself,” Fox said. “He didn’t look fatigued or tired or exhausted. He seemed to be intact. But he did say, ‘I need you tomorrow, we’ve got to get this win tomorrow, because I don’t know what it’s going to be like on Tuesday.’ ”

A team spokesman said O’Neal would miss today’s practice to attend his grandfather’s wake in South Carolina, but would return for the noon shoot-around before Game 2 on Tuesday.

O’Neal said the funeral is Tuesday, and did not guarantee that he would be back in time for the game.

“Phil [Jackson] has been gracious enough to tell me, ‘Do whatever,’ ” said O’Neal, dressed in a black three-piece suit instead of the casual outfits he usually wears to games. “But I’ll do what’s right.”

Here’s guessing that he will be energized by the time spent around his family at the wake Monday, then will return to work for Game 2.

He already credited two of the strong women in his family for his ability to go from grieving grandson/proud parent to playoff-ready center.

“After I had my child, my wife told me to just go out there and play,” O’Neal said. “I talked to my mother this morning, she told me to relax, everything will be all right. As long as those two are OK, then I can be semi-OK. And on a semi-OK day, I can get [32] and 10, 10 for 13 from the line.”

He didn’t have an impact on the scoreboard early, because the Timberwolves surrounded him, which cleared space for Kobe Bryant to do his thing. Bryant had 28 points in the first half, and also drove and dished to O’Neal often enough to get the Big Fella 12 points. And with the defense sagging around O’Neal, Fox and Derek Fisher drilled open three-pointers.

In the third quarter the Timberwolves cut a 16-point Laker lead to four. But O’Neal scored eight points in a 12-0 Laker run to put them ahead by 16 again.

Afterward, O’Neal spent more time recounting his grandfather’s life than he did explaining the game.

He shared some of the little details about a person’s life that seem to rush to the front of the mind after the person dies.

O’Neal remembered his grandfather’s hats.

“He always wore those Al Capone gangster straw hats,” O’Neal said.

He remembered that his grandfather used to bring him to bars when he was younger. O’Neal sneaked a few sips of beer -- and quickly learned to hate it.

And the only thing his grandfather asked for after O’Neal signed his first NBA contract was a Cadillac, which he used to drive down the block with pride.

O’Neal talked about his grandfather’s days as a youth, picking cotton in Dublin, Ga.

It’s an amazing American story. The grandson of a cotton-picker is making $23.6 million to play basketball this season.

“It’s been nice,” O’Neal said. “The stories that I hear, where we come from, all the stuff we went through. Growing up, listening to Grandma and Grandpa talk, me being the type of kid that used to dream a lot, I always used to tell them, ‘When I make it rich, I’m going to take care of you.’

“Where we lived at, where I grew up, it wasn’t really a nice place. I just wanted to be somewhere else. It was up to me and up to all my other cousins to get something going. I was lucky.”

O’Neal also seemed keenly cognizant of his place on the family tree of NBA big men.

Former NBA centers Bill Russell, Bob Lanier and Moses Malone sat a few rows from the floor Sunday, and after a fourth-quarter basket O’Neal pointed to them as he ran back downcourt.

“Up there were some of the truest big men ever to play the game,” O’Neal said. “I just wanted to let them know that the last true big man was representing.”

He was representing the O’Neal family as well. From the late Sirlester O’Neal to the newborn Shaqir Rashaun O’Neal. There was Shaquille, right in the middle, just as he has been for the Lakers so many times before.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.