Harassed by Shaq BFG’s

Two days ago, I was sitting at work, speed running my tasks at my desk as usual, when a small crowd of co-workers with their phones recording appeared behind me. For a split second, I was thoroughly confused, because they were all pointed at me. Before I could figure out why the paparazzi was aiming their cameras at me, I imagined that I was going to get fired in the most humiliating way. Fired on camera, and then posted on social media.

Without moving my chair, I simply lifted my head straight up to see who was causing the chaos and cameras. When I finally realized who it was, I knew it had nothing to do with me. It was about the 7-footer standing over me, pretending to observe what I was doing by looking over my shoulder.

Before I tell you who committed this heinous workplace harassment, I’m going to give you an extensive history lesson about Bitter Ben. Besides being bitter, I’m also a well-known San Antonio Spurs fan. I’m a fan of them for many reasons, but the number one reason is David Robinson. As a fairly new NBA fan from South Dakota, I was in the midst of deciding who I would follow for the rest of my NBA fan career. I knew a few things about the NBA, but the most important thing to know was that I hated the Lakers.

I’d read all summer about this upcoming new rookie out the of Naval Academy named David Robinson, who was “finally” going to make his NBA debut. After setting the world on fire at the Naval Academy for four years, and serving two years in the Navy, he was finally making his debut at the age of 24, he was unlike anyone I’d ever seen. He was 7’1, 235 pounds, super skinny, but cut like a Greek God. He was also fast, and left handed. In his first game as a rookie, he scored 23 points, had 17 rebounds, 3 blocks and one steal and lead the Spurs over the Lakers. When I read all about them humiliating the Lakers, I immediately hitched my wagon to the Spurs and David Robinson.

For David’s rookie year, he took the NBA by storm. He was the most exciting rookie the NBA had seen since Michael Jordan.”The Admiral” as he was called because of his rank in the Navy, was setting league ablaze. He helped the Spurs go from worst to first, setting the record for biggest one-season turnaround in NBA history at the time. He won Rookie of the Month every month, made the All-Star team, got All-NBA third team, and All-Defensive Second team as a rookie. The Spurs almost made the conference finals in the playoffs, taking the Portland Trailblazers to a Game 7 overtime. It was only because his point guard, Rod Strickland threw a careless pass over his head that they didn’t win that year. Based on his impressive rookie year, many in the league thought that David Robinson had the potential to be one of the all time best centers and players ever in the league. I still think he’s the all-time best.

That hype for NBA experts lasted…one off season. You see, there was this kid, ironically from San Antonio, who was an absolute behemoth at LSU. He was the same height, but weighed 295 pounds, and he was an absolute force of nature. He declared for the draft, got picked number 1 by the Orlando Magic and while statistically he was about the same as David Robinson, he got way more hype the very next year.

He wasn’t Rookie of the Month every month, or the unanimous Rookie of the Year like the Admiral, but his stats were almost identical. David had only .9 points per game more, had 1.9 less rebounds per game, had .1 more assists, had one more steal per game, was a much better free throw shooter, but was three percentage points down on field goals. Robinson was the speedy gazelle that could get a rebound, and run his own fast break, Shaq was the guy shattering rims and backboards. They were both awesome, and head to head they almost mirrored each other. Head to head in the regular season, David won 12 to 11. In the playoffs, Shaq won 9 to 8. Shaq had a better career point average 23.7 to 21.1, and rebounds 10.9 to 10.6. They tied with assists, David had more steals, blocks and free throw percentage. Shaq won 4 championships to David’s 2. Shaq had 14 to 10 All-NBA seasons, David had 8 All-Defensive’s to Shaq’s 3. They both won the MVP once, and Shaq had 15 All-Star games to David’s 10. Shaq played 19 seasons, and David 14.

Because David’s demeanor was serious and straight laced, and Shaq was more bombastic and loud, Shaq got more attention from the NBA in general. Shaq often cited a story about how when he first met David Robinson, David denied him an autograph, and for the rest of his career, he took that slight and used it against David whenever they played against each other. Shaq later admitted that he made the story up to motivate him when he went against David. Shaq and Kobe stood in the way of David Robinson possibly winning two or three more championships. Shaq and the Lakers and David and the Spurs had the most intense rivalry whenever they played for about 7 or 8 years.

Shaq was on the floor for the most heart-wrenching defeat of my career as a Spurs fan. He was there for .4, which is all you have to say if you are a Spurs or Lakers fan. That’s how much time was left on the clock when Tim Duncan hit the best shot of his career, a fading, falling down, shot at the free throw line that helped the Spurs beat the Lakers in Game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference Semifinals. Except…Shaq’s teammate Derek Fisher, got an inbound pass and was able to somehow turnaround, and shoot a basketball in .4 seconds, and make it. That cost the Spurs the championship that year. Although, I like to point out to my Lakers fan brother that the Lakers also didn’t with the championship that year. My point to all of this is, I hated Shaq.

He was the bane of my Spurs fan existence. He took all the attention from David Robinson, he sullied David’s reputation, and he wrecked many of my formative basketball years for me and the Spurs.

Two days ago, standing over me at my desk, he decided that torturing me and the Spurs for years wasn’t enough. He had to have known that I was a Spurs fan, so he decided to torture me in person. While I was busy working, he brought his whole team of paparazzi and walked up behind me, while I was working, and looked over my shoulder. When I looked up, and for a split second, realized it was him, I could only think of one thing to say to him. “Oh hey, Shaq.” And he just walked away.

He didn’t stay and ask to shake my hand. He didn’t say sorry for harassing me at work. He didn’t even stand there and let me unload 19 years of my basketball trauma because of him. Nope, he just moved on. Left me there in my thoughts, not allowing me to get revenge on him. He just left and harassed the rest of my co-workers while his paparazzi filmed my humiliation. He just left, took a stack of fat cash from my company (probably costing me raises for the next decade), posed for a few pictures, and then breezed off without a care in the world.

I was right about him all these years. He’s always been the villain of my story.

While you laugh at the humiliation that Shaq has caused me over the years, here are some Bitter Friday Giftures for you to continue to torture me…

There I was…