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PHOENIX -- Shaquille O'Neal, in case you haven't noticed, is not Charlie Villanueva. O'Neal is one of the game's biggest personalities, and having been in the league for 17 seasons, he can get away with a lot of things that Villanueva just can't.Like logging into his Twitter account and tweeting during halftime of an NBA game, for example.
After Villanueva got busted last week for tweeting during halftime, the whole "athletes on Twitter" thing got some mainstream media attention. And since we know how much Shaq likes attention, he decided to grab some of his own by announcing before Saturday's game against the Wizards that he will tweet at halftime, and won't get in trouble for it like Villanueva did in Milwaukee.
"Attention all twitterers I'm a tweet at halftime and not get fined like vill a new wave a whteva his name is," O'Neal tweeted.
A reporter mentioned Shaq's latest tweet before the game to Alvin Gentry, and the Suns' head coach said he doesn't really care what Shaq does, as long as he produces on the court.
"If he gets 25 and 11, he can do anything he wants," Gentry said. "He can Twitter, he can Facebook, he can -- whatever the hell the other one is, MySpace ... he gets 25 and 11, he can do just about anything he wants."
A reporter told Shaq before the game that Gentry had been alerted to his plan for a halftime tweet, and Shaq was not at all happy about this. He wanted to know who told on him (it wasn't me), and was worried that his plan had been ruined.
The plan, according to Shaq, was to send out a tweet at halftime, and then send out another one a day or two later bragging that he had gotten away with it. So did the fact that his coach knew what might happen prevent O'Neal from carrying out his plan? Nope. Here's what he sent during halftime:
"Shhhhhhh"
That was it; just proof that he indeed wasn't afraid to Twitter at halftime of an actual game, and a wink to his 371,562 (and counting) followers to keep it under wraps.
During his post-game comments, Shaq was asked if he "Twittered or not" during halftime, even though everyone there already knew the answer. After Shaq shrugged his shoulders, a few of the assembled media said "shhhhhhh," which got a big laugh and some good natured name-calling in response from the Big Tweet.
"I'm just having fun," O'Neal said. And by using Twitter to do so, over 370,000 of us all get to be in on it with him.
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