So Shaquille O'Neal is a Celtic. 38 year old Shaquille O'Neal will be wearing the ol' Green and White this year.
It got me to thinking. With Shaq now on the roster, there have to be some quirky little factoids out there that we can find. And there are:
- Shaquille O'Neal and his new coach Doc Rivers spent 4 years in the league together.
Shaq entered the league in the 1992-93 season. At that point, Doc was running point for the Knicks. In their first matchup against each other, Doc dropped 15 points and 11 assists in a 92-77 win. Shaq had 18 points and 17 rebounds... and shot 4 of 11 from the line.
- Shaq and his new GM Danny Ainge spent 3 years in the league together.
Phoenix beat Orlando 108-107 in the first Ainge-Shaq matchup. Danny came off the bench to score 16 points. Shaq had 26 and 17... and shot 6 of 10 from the line.
- With Shaq, the Celtics now have 5 players that have played together in 4 different All Star Games
The earliest was in 2002, when Ray Allen (Bucks), Jermaine O'Neal (Pacers) and Paul Pierce were reserves for the East while KG and Shaq (Lakers) started in the West.
Ray didn't make it in '03. They were all together again in '04 except at that point Ray was with Seattle. In '05 and '06, Shaq was with Miami.
As an added bonus: If you want to add Rasheed Wallace because he's still technically on the roster... in 2006, there were 6 current Celtics in the same All Star game.
- Rajon Rondo was 6 years old during Shaq's rookie season. Kendrick Perkins was 8.
And now he's going to get passes from one and back up the other (eventually).
As an added bonus: Avery Bradley was 2 years old during Shaq's rookie season
And finally (at least for this post)..
- Even with Shaquille O'Neal on the roster, the Celtics are NOT the oldest team in the league:
The Lakers are. Thanks to my main man (Ahmad Rashad voice) MrTrpleDouble10 for that one. Miami is a close second... and even they have more players over 30 on their roster.
So there you have it. I'm sure we'll find more as time marches on.
Game stats via basketball-reference.com