Shaq Brought Expectations, Scrutiny to Phoenix

Until Phoenix, Shaq had a proven track record of bringing teams to the Finals, if not delivering rings. He’s a huge presence, on the floor and in the locker room, who can instantly raise the stakes and transform the culture of a team. The flip side of that, however, is that he greatly raises the amount of scrutiny a team falls under -- and degree to which missteps become high drama.↵
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↵Take the Suns. Before Shaq’s arrival, they were Nash and D’Antoni’s team. They ran. That was their thing. Points went up on the board like crazy, and yet there was something vaguely reassuring about the PG’s mild-mannered brilliance, and the coach’s zany uncle routine. Sure, Shawn Marion made his discontent known, and ended up traded after making some patently unreasonable salary demands. But then again, the whole thing went down so quietly, that second part never really registered. The seeds of Amare’s negative reputation were sown during his season off, and yet all was forgiven when he returned more powerful than ever, a lesson to all of mankind.↵
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↵Did I mention this team had a very popular behind-the-scenes book written about them? And still, things got smoothed over enough to be ignored -- at least for a while.↵
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Then O’Neal shows up, everyone’s suddenly more charged than ever to win, and the past attempts at going all the way are missing a certain something. Amare’s going to get serious. Discipline will reign, implicitly despite D’Antoni’s peculiar philosophy of coaching. Then Phoenix falls to San Antonio in the first round, exit Mike D., and the seriousness gets even more serious.↵↵That’s when Terry Porter came in. However unfairly, he was an actor in this Shaq-induced script. Now, with O’Neal in the house, the team was no longer mild-mannered and slightly mysterious. Lights, camera, Steve Nash lashing out, Amare reduced in the public eye to a cancer, an organization on the skids.↵
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↵Now tell me that melodramatic quality doesn’t have a lot to do with the expectations Shaq brings, a tabloid kind of sports journalism that lusts after quick, reactionary answers. Maybe All-Star Weekend made it worse, but it was the spotlight O’Neal brings that primed the team for this new position in the national media.↵

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