The Official Site of Jermaine O'Neal

Mon, Oct 27th 2008, 11:52

Healthy and happy, O'Neal ready to quiet doubters

J.A. Adande – ESPN

Once you get past the new, Jolly Rancher-red Raptors jersey and the giant black brace on his left knee, there’s something else about Jermaine O’Neal that stands out. It’s his demeanor.

He’s happy. Check that. “I’m extremely happy,” O’Neal said.

After two dismal years in Indianapolis, he’s wearing a smile again, a grin that keeps appearing even after a call goes against him, a fan heckles him, Kobe Bryant talks trash or his stock portfolio loses a half-million dollars.

None of those things is as depressing as a knee so bad he barely could walk, a team so bad half of the arena seats were empty, a team culture gone so wrong star players had to be moved at discount prices. That was life in recent years with the Pacers.

There were shootouts and bar fights and the event that started the downslide, The Brawl at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

“When you play in such a dysfunctional situation that we played in in Indiana, it’s almost never about basketball,” O’Neal said. “Even the organization stops thinking about improving the team and starts thinking more about addressing image situations.

“To me, it’s like, you see years and years, just slipping. And physically, you just wear down.”

In his case, it was a knee that required surgery, and when that didn’t solve the problem, all he could do was sit out. He had one of his best games of 2007-08, posting 27 points, nine rebounds and six blocks against the Warriors at the end of a Western road trip in January, then couldn’t last more than nine minutes against them back home three days later. His leg was swollen from his ankles to his thigh. He took two and a half months off, but not even rest, after consultation with three knee specialists, seemed like the solution. At dinner in the waning weeks of last season, his wife had an even better prescription.

“You’re never going to get better physically until you get better mentally,” she told him.

And where was he mentally?

“I was gone,” he said. “I knew I needed a new start.”

Management was ready to complete the purging that sent brawl instigator Ron Artest to Sacramento and six-shooter Stephen Jackson to Golden State and still has a pending departure for Jamaal Tinsley. A team that reached Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals in 2004 has just hit the reset button.

“Obviously, we’re going in a different direction,” Pacers president Larry Bird said. “There were a lot of things going on here, not with [O’Neal] per se, with the team. It was a tough time for everybody around here, including Jermaine.”

For O’Neal, it got to the point that he dreaded going to work.

“As a professional athlete, you should never feel that way,” O’Neal said. “We get paid a lot of money to not feel that way. We’re not supposed to feel that way. That’s our job. Even if you don’t feel well, you go and play hard. I’m not saying I didn’t play hard in games. I led the league in charges when I was playing. I was in the top six in blocked shots. I still did my job. I just couldn’t do it to the best of my abilities. I just wasn’t happy.

“No matter how hard you try, you come back with the same result. The same damn result. It’s very discouraging. You’re looking up there, you see 6,000 people in a 20,000-seat arena.

“They pay good money to see a good game, they deserve to see a product out there that represents their city … my apologies to that city for not being able to finish the job.”

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