Because he was blessed with something we weren't, Shaquille O'Neal knew something we didn't.
In body, he was basketball perfection.
As O'Neal understood, such a blessing was a curse.
Hopes, dreams, expectations and demands for him would never be reasonable—and they never were. People never would and never will say he overachieved in his field.
That's what O'Neal accepted in order to make enough peace with his potential and to accomplish what he did. He was different from the typical nose-to-the-grindstone success story, and he was OK with that. In fact…
In mind, he was basketball imperfection.
He could have used that mind to expand his game, take better care of his body, be a better teammate. He could have tried harder, obviously, to make a few more of the 6,466 (!) free throws he missed in NBA games.
That stuff is grounds for criticism when we want our athletic heroes to be worthy of idolization and imitation. Yet in his own way, that was the right path for O'Neal to find the balance that every life coach or mountaintop guru preaches for us.
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Kevin Ding
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September 8th, 2016 by Kevin Ding Leave a reply »
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