Shaq already beginning to make his mark with Cavs

Nobody was laughing last week when word began to circulate through Cavalier circles that LeBron James might have contracted the H1N1 virus.

Suddenly, popping antibiotic pills and squirting out the contents of bottles of hand sanitizer became as much a part of the practice routine as slide-stepping through defensive drills and running the pick and roll.

Well, almost nobody was laughing.

"I don't get sick," declared Shaquille O'Neal as he sat on the courtside press table wearing a smile as big as Texas. "I'm the son of a military man. We've got top secret access to Tamiflu.

"Flu shot? No."

O'Neal reaches to touch a finger to his head.

"It's all up here," he said. "Last time I got sick, a dog bit me in the (butt) and I got rabies. That was in the 1980s."

With that, the court is filled with howls of laughter from an audience that can't get enough of Shaq. And from Shaq who can't get enough of himself.

He is in Cleveland now, on the latest cross-country volley of his East-West-East-West-East ping-ponging career because, even at 37, he is still Shaq. A year ago, in what became a dysfunctional situation in Phoenix, it meant 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds in just 30 minutes a night. That's the kind of production that could finally put the Cavs over the top.

Why wouldn't LeBron James or any player want the most physically dominant player of his --- or maybe any --- era throwing his bulk and his considerable skills around in the middle of the lineup?

Perhaps just as important is the sometimes-smiling, sometimes-snarling, always larger-than-life personality that O'Neal brings to the mix.

"Our culture has been good for the last four years," said Cavs coach Mike Brown. "We've had good guys on our team. Shaq is just an addition to that. It's a bonus, that way he is as a person. It is definitely a bonus that he has a sense of humor. He keeps things light for the 82 games, the six-month season."

Whether it's entertaining the media with open-mike-night-at-the-comedy-club routines or diving onto the floor at the end of practice to engage Cavs' physical therapist George Seibel in a wrestling match, Shaq is going to draw attention. Maybe that's not a bad thing for a team that finished 66-16 last season, the best regular season record in the league, but was knocked off by Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals.

Since their premature flight to the NBA Finals in 2007, where they were summarily swept by the Spurs, the spotlight and the burden on Cleveland has only grown. Nike, with all of those Kobe-LeBron ads planned, wasn't the only entity disappointed that the Cavs didn't reach the Finals last June.

"It's been great. He's been great," James said of Shaq's arrival. "He's an absolute professional. He takes a lot of the media pressure off me. I don't have to do as much because his presence and his attitude are great. People are attracted to that, so he does that not only for me, but for the whole team."

Of course, what the Cavs provide for O'Neal is the opportunity to break his 4-4 tie in championship rings with ex-teammate Kobe Bryant and give him his chance to enhance that already golden resume by winning it all with his third different franchise.

"It's a fun team," Shaq said. "It's a young, energetic team. It's probably the type of team a guy like me should be on at the end of his career, rather than being out there with a bunch of old guys. It's me and Z (Zydrunas Ilgauskas) and everybody else is in their early 30s or 20s. If you hang around with young people, then you feel young.

"I've always been an elder statesman. I've always done my own thing. I try to do and say the right thing. I'm sort of like a low-level Charles Barkley. I do it my way. I do it in an unorthodox way. I talk crap. I get into trouble every now and then. But it's done in a respectful, marketing type manner.

"I knew coming in I'm not gonna get the 25-30 shots I'm used to. I'm fine with that. I had my time. I dominated my time. No big man in history has done it like I've done when I had that presidential slot. Now it's a different time for me. LeBron gonna have the ball most of the time. When he gives it up, it's our job to make him look good. David did it for Tim Duncan, so I've got to do it. I did it for D-Wade, so I'll do it for LeBron.

"Being the father of six children, LeBron is one of those kids who gets good grades, does everything right. To put that into basketball terms, he's a team player, great guy in the locker room, so I didn't need to come in there and say, 'Do this and do that.' He's earned his spot. He's earned his name."

Not that James isn't open to advice and ready for anything Shaq has to offer.

"He can provide more than a little tip," James said. "If he wanted to throw his weight around, he could. He's a four-time champion. He's a Hall of Famer. He has all rights to do whatever he wants to do. But he's gonna be respected. That's just the type of player he is. He has the right to say what he wants to, because he's walked the walk and he's talked the talk."

Brown tells of an incident in a preseason game when one of his young big men did something wrong, so the coach immediately pulled him out of the game. During the next timeout, Shaq talked to the player, explained the situation and told him what he needed to say to Brown. A few minutes later, the wound had been healed and the player was put back into the game.

"Oh, games and practice, Shaq's been helping by teaching," Brown said.

That is when he's not helping just by being himself. Even if he no longer is in, as he calls it, the presidential slot.

"Now I'm the leader of the army," said a grinning Shaq, warming up another willing audience. "I'm in 'Witness' protection."

Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977. You can e-mail him here.

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