It makes you miss the old days, the Star Wars with Kobe, the nights you didn’t know whether the big dog was going to come out and guard the house or whether he was going to sit back, aggravated and annoyed, and watch Showboat go. It makes you miss watching Orlando come of age, Jordan vs. Shaq, the original.

Shaq was the adhesive that kept it all together, the NBA from Jordan to Duncan to Kobe to LeBron. He was there all along, the one constant, the biggest and most entertaining mouth in the league.

I wonder what Kobe will remember about him? What about Phil? What’s he going to think about? Horace Grant? Scott Skiles? Rick Fox? Penny? Pat Riley?

In a statement released yesterday by David Stern, the NBA’s commissioner had this to say: “For 19 seasons, Shaquille O’Neal was literally and figuratively an NBA giant. On behalf of the NBA, its teams, and his millions of fans around the world, I want to thank Shaq for everything he has meant to the league and to the sport of basketball, both on and off the court. We wish him and his family all the best.”

This December, I was in Boston checking in on Paul Pierce for a story in Issue 62. Perfect timing. I finally got to spend some time with the Diesel, ironically in his final season.

Now Shaq didn’t do much on the court that night; he played 21 minutes, scoring 11 with just five boards, and got lit up for 17 and 14 from Roy Hibbert. Back in the day, that would’ve never happened. But the Diesel took it in stride. His ego was hurt, but it didn’t kill him.

In the locker room afterwards, in typical Shaq fashion, he joked he wasn’t impressed with Hibbert. AT ALL. Repeated it over and over. “You know me,” he kept telling everyone. Then he went down the line of reporters there, most of whom were Boston media that talked to him nearly every day. “I know you. I know you. Y’all know me,” he was pointing his index joint in faces. “I know you, and you and…” Finally, he stopped on one reporter. Stoic. Silence. His finger hanging in the air, face locked-in. “But I DON’T know you.” C’mon Shaq? Why you gotta single someone out like that? I said to myself. Embarrassing wasn’t enough. After about five awkward seconds, he dropped the stone face and finger, and let out the widest grin you’ll ever see on a seven footer. He started laughing with us. Typical.

Shaq knew a whole lot of people, seemingly every person he ever came in contact with, and we felt we knew him. The biggest player ever represented all of us. Funny how things work sometimes. He was one of us. He was real. Nothing about him was scripted. He was ironically normal.

Shaq is gone now. Well, he’ll still be around (on TNT hopefully, and will have his jersey retired in L.A.). But the doorway to his playing career is all locked-up. The memories are frozen. With each passing year, another new class of youth gets introduced to the game and the memories of O’Neal fade further away.

Forget the all-time rankings. Forget the numbers and whether he could’ve been better. I won’t remember that, won’t immediately think, “He could’ve been better than Kareem.” If that’s the first thing popping in someone’s brain, then it ain’t right. Because if that’s what you saw, what you’ll remember, then you missed out.

What was Shaq’s best performance in an NBA Finals?

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