Spring Loaded

No one will ever accuse me of being a great athlete.

Or even an athlete, for that matter.

But the one thing I do pretty well is play ping-pong. Okay, not exactly a sport in the minds of some, but those are small minds. Hey, there’s a ball. What more do you need to qualify?

Anyway, back in my days as a Laker beat writer, I got into a battle of the paddles with Bob McAdoo in a rec room at the Cleveland hotel where we were staying.

McAdoo may have been a three-time NBA scoring champion and the league’s MVP in 1975, but on the ping-pong table he was mine.

I beat him, giving me bragging rights that certainly impressed my friends.

McAdoo didn’t mention our game again for year. Then, we found ourselves back in the same Cleveland hotel.

McAdoo casually asked if I wanted to play again, I obliged, looking for the back-to-back. Instead, McAdoo solidly whipped me.

When we were done, he admitted that he had gone out and bought a ping-pong table after losing to me, He spent a year honing his game, waiting for the return trip to Cleveland.

Imagine that, an NBA player on the Showtime Lakers in the midst of their championship years obsessing about losing a ping-pong match.

McAdoo validated the old cliché about athletes being so competitive that they hate to lose at anything, even if its tiddlywinks.

Nice cliché, but not always true. Many athletes, lugging around those big egos, won’t play another sport if they don’t think they can win.

I bring that up because of the new ABC sports/reality show, "Shaq Vs." Each week, Shaquille O’Neal takes on a star athlete in the sport that athlete excels.

Okay, “takes on” might be stretching it a bit.

In the first episode, he squared off against the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger in a battle of quarterbacks.

Sort of.

Each of them got three possessions in a seven-on-seven format with no kicking allowed. Either get the ball in the end zone or get a big, fat zero on the scoreboard. There was no rushing allowed by the



defense and Shaq started from the opponents’ 20-yard line while Roethlisberger began from the 40.

Given enough time to run out a 24-second clock, Shaq was eventually going to find an open receiver. Especially if the defenders had read the script.

Still, he showed a good arm, throwing one bomb for a TD, and hung in there until losing on the last possession.

In the coming weeks, Shaq will take on champions in everything from beach volleyball to boxing.

Sure, it’s just entertainment. Yes, the rules will be bent and the opponents will flow with the story line. But, as Roethlisberger demonstrated at the end, he wasn’t about to lose at his own sport, entertainment or no entertainment.

When they had the old Superstars competition, all the athletes competed in sports other than their own. But none of them were competing in their own sport.

Shaq has put his ego aside, no small feat, and allowed himself to enter arenas where he can’t possibly win in order to bask in the glow of his own show.

He even allowed footage of his loss to Roethlisberger in a game of HORSE to be shown.

What’s the big deal, you say. It’s only dancing with the stars in cleats. Who cares?

Many athletes would care, would not want to be seen losing to anybody in anything.

But Shaq, the man who has long referred to himself as the best basketball player on the planet, the man who resorted to bitter rips at Kobe Bryant after leaving the Lakers, seems to be genuinely enjoying his new status as an elder statesman of his sport, anxious to leave the bitter image behind and dispel the idea that he’s not a good sport.

For the sequel, I’d love to see Shaq Vs. Mac as in McAdoo.

Or, how about Shaq Vs. Kobe?

Think that might get some good numbers?

He’s too intense.

He’s too serious.

He’s too arrogant.

He doesn’t show his opponents enough respect.

He’s taking all the joy out of winning.

Is that about it for Kobe Bryant or can we find something else to complain about?

Good thing he didn’t snub the media and opponents a la LeBron James. In Kobe’s case, that might have raised calls for his banishment.

All the nitpicking is about as damaging as throwing paper airplanes at a tank. Kobe just rolls over it the way he has rolled over the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals.

He’s less than a week away from solidifying his place as the best basketball player on the planet and among a handful considered the best of all time. In the last year, Kobe has won an MVP award, an Olympic gold medal and will add his fourth NBA title this week, his first without Shaquille O’Neal.

“I want it so bad,” Kobe said after Game 1, as if he had to explain his intensity.

He’ll even make his critics happy next week after his mission is accomplished and the pressure is off. He’ll crack a huge smile when he raises the championship trophy over his head, embrace Dwight Howard, hug his own wife and kids and even joke with the media.

To be sure, Kobe was deserving of criticism in the past.

He was immature when he first turned pro, a teen-ager firing up those ill-advised airballs against Utah in the postseason of his rookie year.

But he was 17 when he was drafted and never had the benefit of college. Andrew Bynum has gotten more understanding about his immaturity and he’s in his fourth season.

Kobe got criticized for his share of the Kobe-Shaq feud.

Both men should have put the best interests of the team ahead of their own egos, but what did Kobe ever really demand of Shaq? That he stay in shape. Wow, what a radical idea.

Kobe was criticized for his give-me-the-ball-and-get-out-of-my-way or you-take-the-ball-and-leave-me-alone attitude and those detractors were justified.

Kobe seemed to struggle for a long time with the intricacies of integrating himself into the offense Feeling he could score any time he had the ball in his hands, he figured, why not?

Kobe, when he was on one of those tears, never threw a premeditated pass.

When he bowed to pressure and tried to share the ball with teammates, his method was to give it to them and get out of the way.

And certainly he received criticism when he was charged with sexual assault in Colorado. But, as we all know, those charges were dropped.

So now, what’s the beef?

Kobe has matured. He has become the consummate teammate, both on and off the court, sharing the ball and his advice, serving as Phil Jackson’s surrogate when necessary, equal parts cheerleader, disciplinarian, strategist and intermediary with the guys in the striped shirts. It is Kobe who makes sure the ball is evenly distributed and the scoring column as well when possible.

And when a sure-handed touch is needed in the scoring department, when the clock is running down, when the closer is needed out of the bullpen, Kobe is there as well, scoring at a pace and in a variety of ways that matches anyone who has ever stepped on the hardwood.

Even at the international level, it was Kobe who set the tone for the defensive mode that smoothed the path for the U.S. to Olympic gold in Beijing.

Last year, it was Chris Paul who was supposedly challenging Kobe’s place as the game’s best player. This season, it was LeBron. Next year, it’ll be another hot gunslinger.

Kobe is 30. He’s not going anywhere. The only people he should be compared with are Kareem, MJ, Wilt and Bill Russell.

To say that Michael Jordan is automatically the best who ever played is ludicrous. Russell had far more championships (11 in 13 seasons, including eight in a row). Kareem had six, the same number as Jordan, and is the league’s all-time leading scorer. You like numbers? Wilt was the greatest offensive force the game has ever known.

And now, Kobe has entered the conversation, clenched teeth and all.