Let’s go back in time and revisit some of his past nicknames:

• The Diesel (we’ll revisit this one in a moment)
• Shaq Fu
• The Big Aristotle
• The Big Daddy
• Superman (well, I think Dwight Howard just appropriated that name…)
• Wilt Chamberneezy
• The Real Deal
• The Big Agave (???)
• The Big Cactus
• Shaqtus
• The Big Galactus (kind of redundant… Galactus eats frickin’ planets, so a Big Galactus is what? Bigger?)

Anyways, let’s consider where he’s playing: Cleveland. And since the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Washington Wizards are rivals — and keep in mind the Wiz beat the Cavs twice last year (including the “crab dribble” game), and should have won a third on Christmas Day — I can’t let Shaq have an easy time of it. And when a friend who is also a fellow season-ticket holder for the Wiz proposed this name, I thought, “It’s perfect! Kind of like “The Diesel” but… grosser!”

The nickname?

The Cleveland Steamer

*** EDIT ***

The Cavaliers won 100-97 in a thriller. It was one of those games where, in the final 5 seconds, you’re holding your breath and wondering if Gilbert Arenas was going to sink one of his patented end-of-game threes to send this puppy to OT.

Instead… he missed and the game ended.

At that point, I’m sick, my team has lost, and yet… I’m feeling pretty good because I’d been re-energized by having family & friends around. The game was simply an excuse to be around some people and soak up some positive vibes and love while trying to defeat this pesky bug that seems to persist despite my best attempts to expunge it from my system.

Even better: when I got home, I got phone calls and text messages from friends that brightened my day. I found the energy to assemble my new lawn mower (because the dandelion farm I’m cultivating is not eye candy for my neighbors), and my plan is to knock that out first thing in the morning, finish packing, then bolt to the airport for my flight to Vegas.

Then I’m going to catch up with customers, make sure everything is stable before I try to crash out hard and recuperate as much as possible.

It’s going to be a busy week!

DeShawn Stevenson allegedly suffers from a horrible neurological disorder that causes him to lose feeling in his face when his 3-point shot is “ON”.

The Cavaliers have beaten the Wizards eight times in a row in the post-season over the past three years, so the Wizards have a chip on their shoulder, and as NBA fans are aware of, there’s been a lot of smack talk between the Wizards and the Cavaliers. It all started with DeShawn Stevenson saying LeBron was “overrated” after the Wiz beat them near the end of the season. This triggered a response from LeBron James that turned Soulja Boy in to a Wizards fan:

“With DeShawn Stevenson, it’s kind of funny. It’s almost like Jay-Z [responding to a negative comment] made by Soulja Boy. It doesn’t make sense to respond.”

During Game 2, when DeShawn taunted the Cavs after sinking a three pointer by doing his patented “I can’t feel my face”-move, the Cavs Damon Jones struck back and mocked him by doing the “I can’t feel my face”-move right back at him.

Ouch!

The Cavs went on to blow out the Wizards by 30 points, the largest margin of victory for the Cleveland Cavaliers in playoff history.

Game 2 was not fun to watch. It certainly wasn’t fun for the Wizards.

That said, tonight was a bit different. For one thing, the game was in D.C. at the Verizon Center, and the fans were all encouraged to wear white to show their support for the team. The fact that free white T-shirts were provided for every fan certainly helped create the sea of white-clad people in the stands.

Ahhhh, almost like a fresh snowfall. But it’s 80 degrees outside.

The Wizards pretty much dominated the game from start to finish. They held the Cavs to only 33 points in the first half, and I even had a chance to see a celebrity:

Stephen A. Smith is hilariously awesome because he tells it like it is… loudly and with the passion of a preacher tellin’ it to the choir!

DeShawn Stevenson even went on a tear, sinking a couple of three pointers and getting the crowd amped up…

Even in the stands, folks were doing the “I can’t feel my face”-move.

The Wizards finished the game strong, blowing out the Cavs 108-72 for the largest margin of victory for Wizards in playoff history (36 points).

Fans were hoping we’d try to win by an even 40 (not that we’re bitter about Game 2 — but Andray Blatche missed his free throws and the Cavs narrowed the margin of victory to 36.

Lose by 30 in Game 2, Win by 36 in Game 3. Now it’s going to be heck of a time in Game 4!

Now on to Game 4 — this one will be interesting because I’ve bought ten tickets on “The Hill” (nosebleed seats) for family and friends for Sunday’s game. I expect both teams to come out on top of their game, and you know the Cavaliers are not enjoying themselves tonight after a thirty-six point beatdown.

And yet, hardcore fans are always able to find something transcendent in the mercenary world of professional sports.

That said, this article on ESPN.com shows that one fan, who happens to be a sports writer, has definitely gleaned some positives from his team during his lifetime. Sad but true, he’ll be losing his team when the Supersonics relocate from Seattle to Oklahoma City.

…

I just keep thinking of all the Sonics gave me through the years:

•The Sonics taught me basic English. It was pretty simple, really. I just listened to how my dad and uncle talked about Denver’s Dan Issel during the ‘78 playoffs. If the word in front of Issel’s name ended in “ing,” it was a profane adjective. If it didn’t, it was a profane noun.

•They taught me how to deal with pain. When this happened in May 1994, I was in the midst of a painful divorce. My soon-to-be ex-wife called me the next day to make sure I was OK after the worst loss in Sonics’ history. She didn’t call to make sure I was OK when she left me, but she worried Dikembe Mutombo might push me over the edge.

•They taught me that sometimes being a bit rebellious can be very good. I still remember the spring night in 1992 when the Supes came out wearing black socks and all-black shoes for a playoff game at Golden State. That was the symbolic beginning of the in-your-face era of Payton and Kemp. Combine that with the height of the grunge music scene, and there was never a cooler time to live in the Great Northwest.

•The Sonics taught me that sometimes life is fixed against you, sometimes you catch a lucky break and very often good things come to those who wait.

•They taught me that loyalty is much more important than currency — no matter what Mr. Coffee would tell you.

•And they taught me that joy knows no limits. I won’t forget the Wizard, DJ, JJ, Downtown Freddie, Sikma, X Man, 3-D, the Reign Man, Det or the Glove. And I’ll always remember Eddie’s half-courter vs. the Rockets, Shawn slamming the door on the Warriors (No. 8 here), Big Smooth’s triple in Phoenix and Gus throwing the ball skyward at the Cap Center.

I’ll remember all the time I invested with my family and friends in “our team.” Maybe the basketball was just a backdrop — but I can’t imagine another backdrop that would bring us together more. My wife, Melanie, and I had our first date at a Sonics game (considering it was a game against the pre-LeBron Cavaliers, it’s amazing I got a second date). One of my fondest memories was watching the championship parade with my grandpa and having him buy me this T-shirt, which I then wore for 113 consecutive days.

Nothing — no saber-rattling commissioner, no sinister owner, no greedy coffee magnate, no misguided city council, no cowardly state legislature — can take any of that away from me.

At the end of Sunday’s game, as “Celebration” blared from the loud speakers, my daughter turned to me and asked, “Do we get to keep the Sonics now that they won?”

The more I think about it, there’s no price on any of it — the good times or the Mutombo times. In fact, the more I think about it, the only real question is what would I pay to have them stay.

“When I was new in the NBA the team veterans convinced me to shave, you know, down there, because they said the hair stinks. I used my girlfriend’s razor, which was rusty and gave me keloids. The doctor prescribed medicine to dab on, but I just poured it all over. Three days later I woke up screaming. The skin was burnt off my scrotum, down to my crack, everything — just raw flesh. I still had to run and play, so I used a numbing spray for a month until it healed. Now I use clippers.”

“Aaaargh! It burns! And the goggles… the goggles… They do not work!”

…then, he reveals on his NBA.com blog that the subsequent discomfort led to an explosion of talcum power in the middle of a game.

The Shaving “Down There” Story

I was 18! I mean, what to do you expect? At 18 you’re experimental.

I mean come on.

You know what’s funny about it? I know everybody is saying “too much information,” but at the time, that was the joke of the team that year. It got us through the year with great laughs because if nobody had any new material, we just always went back to that.

“You been using any shavers lately?”

It was my second year. Coach Musselman was there and made fun of me for it all year long.

It was the worst pain I ever felt. I told myself, if I can play through that, I can play through anything.

Thinking back on it now, it was pretty funny. I remember we were in L.A. and we were playing the Clippers and we were trying as a team to find stuff to try to cool the flesh down and we couldn’t find anything.

Everything hurt – putting tights on, no tights, jock straps – we tried everything and it didn’t work. So what I decided to do was after I put my compression shorts on, I taped them to my leg around my thigh and I just poured a whole bottle of baby powder in there.

Against L.A. I remember driving to the hole and got hit by Keyon Dooling and all you see is POOF, a cloud of smoke of baby powder. That’s what I’m saying, it’s funny now at 26-years old to laugh at it, but it hurt then.

My teammates used to be like, “Oh, there goes Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Oh, the good old days. You know I tell you guys you got to have memories, that’s a memory.

Seriously, Agent Zero… Get well soon. It’s obvious that all this time away from the game, rehabilitating and recuperating, are taking you to that special place where crazy gets scary!

One athlete I never had much of a chance to appreciate while he was playing for a local team was Earl “The Pearl” Monroe… but today, I’ll get a chance to be at the Verizon Center when they retire his #10 jersey as the Wizards take on the Raptors.

The Pearl’s importance to modern basketball is best summarized by a column Mike Wise wrote in the Washington Post (which also explains the “Black Jesus” nickname):

In his autobiography “Giant Steps,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recounted the day an all-star team from Philadelphia came to claim the Rucker League crown. He spoke of a player who had moves the gangly teen never had seen, vividly describing the two busloads of worshipers who came to see him play.

Harlem, circa 1966, and the only sound was a “continuous wail that seemed to be coming from everywhere.

“Where’s Jesus? Black Jesus!”

Earl Monroe parted the crowd to get to the court. They kept chanting, in a whisper now:

“Black Jesus, Black Jesus, Black Jesus.”

“Mount Morris Park, that’s where it was played,” Monroe said yesterday. “What a place. . . . What a time.

…

The adolescent reading this who believes improvisation and creativity started with Michael and now resides on an AND1 bus needs to check himself before he wrecks himself. Monroe spun his body 360 degrees in midair before Jordan or LeBron James’s mother were born. So unpredictable, so original, Monroe painted more than he played, and the court was his canvas. He once was asked to describe his stutter-stepping, stop-and-pop game. The Pearl settled on this:

“The thing is, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the ball, and if I don’t know, I’m quite sure the guy guarding me doesn’t know either.”

Monroe was less a symbol of basketball’s evolution than society’s. He was not a free-flowing player as much as an ideal — a pirouetting vision of black empowerment, who married sport and pop culture long before Jordan. Something about his loping gait, his easygoing, “don’t-worry-I-got-this-game” smile — Monroe and teammate Walt Frazier’s style and panache flat-out reflected the zeitgeist of 1970s New York.

Clyde and the Pearl in fur on Friday night — that was how to live.