Shaquille O’Neal now owns a piece of the Sacramento Kings (Ball Don't Lie)

[Yahoo! Sports - NBA -]

During his eight seasons as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaquille O'Neal feasted on the Sacramento Kings. He averaged 28.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.1 blocks per game in 26 regular-season contests against the Kings, leading L.A. to a 17-9 record against their in-state rivals, and raised his play even more during the teams' three postseason meetings — just a shade under 31 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks per game in 16 meetings, an 11-5 overall record and three straight years of ending the Kings' season. In the parlance of the game, you might say that while he wore forum blue and gold, the surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer owned his neighbors to the north. And now, in a truth-is-stranger-than-the-fiction turn of fate, you can also say it literally. As first reported by Sam Amick of USA TODAY Sports , the Kings announced Monday that the 41-year-old TNT analyst (or, y'know, "analyst") has joined Sacramento's new Vivek Ranadivé-led ownership group as "a minority owner." "What interested me in this deal is the new vision, the new Kings, the new everything," O'Neal, who so famously deemed the Kings the "Queens" at the start of the 2002-03 season, said. "I've always wanted to be part of something like this … It's going to be great." [...] "I wanted to find somebody to add to the ownership group who truly represented 21st century basketball, who represented my vision of NBA 3.0, which is having an understanding of technology, wanting to build a global brand and being global in their thinking, and really being committed to having an impact in the community," Ranadive, the former Golden State Warriors minority owner who heads the group that bought the team for a league-record valuation of $535 million, told USA TODAY Sports. "The most iconic person on the planet was Dr. O'Neal. So Mark Mastrov is good friends with Dr. O'Neal, and Dr. O'Neal and I spent a day at my house shooting hoops, hanging out with my kids, and just talking about how to create the franchise of the 21st century. "We talked about what the forces were that were shaping the 21st century, we talked about technology, we talked about new companies that we were looking at, and based on that we came to a conclusion that we could — what my [late] friend Steve Jobs likes to say — put a dent in the universe if Dr. O'Neal became my partner."

Continue reading...

 

[VF21]

Sam Amick has another great article in USA Today:

"I don't want to say anything premature, but I've been constant in my support for DeMarcus," new Kings owner Vivek Ranadive told USA TODAY Sports. "I reached out to him when we first closed the deal. He was the first person I reached out to. They're out there practicing on their own every day, and he's out there leading those practices. He's out there with the team practicing every single day by themselves. They all came to Sacramento early. I don't know if that's ever happened. So 'Dr. O'Neal' and I are going to have dinner with him on Monday night, and Dr. O'Neal is going to spend a couple of days with him and the team. So I'm very, very pleased with everything that I'm seeing."